“Surprises All the Way to the End”

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST is the third Swedish film in the Millennium Trilogy that includes THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, it is just as good as the first one, and it leaves you wanting more.

We know that there will be more, because Hollywood is working on its own version of the first film, and there are rumors that the manuscript for a fourth novel was found on the computer belonging to Stieg Larsson, the Swedish author who died tragically at 50 before the novels were even published.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's NestThis film begins, naturally enough, where the second one ended, and Lisbeth Salander, the 27-year-old title character, lies in the hospital in pretty bad shape, having had a bullet removed from her brain.

Mikael Blomkvist is the investigative journalist who has been helping Lisbeth in the first two films, and his sister Annika is a lawyer who agrees to defend Lisbeth against the charges of three murders that the audience already knows she didn’t commit.

Lisbeth tells Annika, “I don’t need a lawyer.”

However, of course she does, and she also needs luck and help in her hospital room, because other people are trying to kill her.

Now, it might be confusing to try to understand who all the old people in the story are and to keep them straight after you have seen them, and it will definitely be confusing if you haven’t seen the first two films. So, the place to start is with the excellent first film, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

You might also think that a movie that spends most of its time in a hospital and then later in a courtroom is not going to be very exciting, especially considering all the action in the first two films, but there is action aplenty in this one, as well.

It is also a kick to see Lisbeth get her punk look back when she walks into the courtroom. She is definitely her own woman, and there is already talk about an Academy Award in 2011 for the Swedish actress who plays her, Noomi Repace.

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST is as excellent as the first film, it contains surprises all the way to the end, and I want a fourth one.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”