I Watch Films: The Girl In The Spider's Web
SPOILERS for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. After completing his Millenium trilogy, author Stieg Larsson died. The first book in the trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (and also both film versions) concern a character who faked their own death. A friend suggested to me that Larsson might have done the same thing, in order to avoid the fame and fortune from his books. This of course made no sense, as it would be foolish to write a book about faking a death then faking your own death.
Well more fool me as now we have this posthumous book (I haven’t read) and film which I’ve watched*. There was an occasional suggestion amongst critics that in another medium Lisbeth Salander’s story would be that of a superhero; childhood trauma, abuse, seeking revenge, overpowered hacking and fighting skills. This film really digs in to this at the start, with Salander wearing a mask/makeup, putting on a hood and rescuing women from their abusers with violence and ironic revenge.
Having seen this (Salander with her hoodie and motorbike could so easily join Team Arrow and not seem a single bit out of place), it puts into context the rest of the ludicrous thriller plot. There’s some software that allows nuclear weapons to be hijacked and Salander is hired to retrieve it. (It can’t be copied because of reasons). In fact she has been set up to steal it; there’s active malfeance in the Swedish Security Service (which has been true throughout the Millenium stories); and an iconicly syled and coloured enemy from out of her past.
They even blow up her lair, an abandoned warehouse (again, this would fit perfectly in Arrow as the Dragoncave, or the Tattoocave or maybe the LisbethCave).
Watch This: For a silly thriller or possibly a grounded superhero film
Don’t Watch This: If neither of those two genres seem at all exciting
* It’s not written by Larsson.
Comments