Noomi steals the show again in Larsson’s ‘Fire’

Five months after Noomi Rapace won acclaim for her portrayal of the heroine Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the second Swedish film adapted from Stieg Larsson's hugely successful Millennium trilogy arrives in UK cinemas today.

But with an upcoming Hollywood remake - starring Daniel Craig and the little-known American actress Rooney Mara - snapping at its heels, can The Girl Who Played with Fire keep the Swedes ahead in the box office stakes?
 
Dragon Tattoo made a respectable $58m at the international box office. But while Rapace's intense performance as the punk computer hacker Salander wowed the critics, many were left underwhelmed by the film itself.
 
The verdict of some reviewers is that Fire is more of the same: Rapace steals the show, while the film itself is, in the words of the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert, a "not-bad procedural". Variety's Boyd Van Hoeij was less kind, complaining that "The Girl Who Played With Fire was originally conceived solely for television, and it shows".
 
Others, however, have found the different film-making team behind the second installment a positive switch.

The Guardian's Ben Child calls Fire a "rather sharper piece of film-making than its predecessor" while Los Angeles Times reviewer Betsey Sharkey notes that director Daniel Alfredson and screenwriter Jonas Frykberg keep the same "searing intelligence and ruthless bent that turned the first book's adaptation into an international box office hit", describing the film as "excellent" and "satisfying".
 
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:
 
AO Scott, the New York Times: "It is Ms Rapace's fierce and sly performance, more than the themes or the plot, that sustains The Girl Who Played With Fire... tiny and agile, her steely rage showing now and then the tiniest crack of vulnerability, belongs to another dimension altogether. She makes this movie good enough, but also makes you wish it were much better."
 
Daniel Alfredson, Time Out: "Filmed in murky, grainy tones which chime nicely with the squalid demi-monde that Lisbeth is forced to frequent, the film is more sharply focused on fleshing out mood and character than it is supplying rudimentary twists at cosy junctures." (3/5 stars)

Boyd Van Hoeij, Variety: "Alfredson and scripter Jonas Frykberg are clearly aware this is Salander's show: propelled by her own sense of justice, she operates solo even if people want to help her. But despite countless plot twists - fights, shootouts, chases, fires, even a lesbian encounter - the filmmakers offer no real insight into Larsson's true subject: corrupted contempo Sweden." ·