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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Girl Who Played with Fire, The

EMAILPRINTMusic Box Films

Girl Who Played with Fire, The reviews
66
7.8 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 7 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Action  |  Mystery  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Jonas Frykberg

Directed by: Daniel Alfredson

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 9, 2010

Running Time: 129 minutes, Color

Origin: Sweden | Denmark | Germany

Language(s): Swedish | Italian | French

Summary

RATING: R for brutal violence including a rape, some strong sexual content, nudity and language

Starring Noomi Rapace, and Michael Nyqvist

Mikael Blomkvist is about to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society. On the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander. (Music Box Films)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Noir never has been this dark.

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90

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

Though the thriller is in the hands of a different filmmaking team this time led by Swedish director Daniel Alfredson and screenwriter Jonas Frykberg, they've kept the searing intelligence and ruthless bent.

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90

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The actress gets immeasurable help from the writing: Lisbeth's anger is matched by her intelligence and her physical prowess, which enables her to administer as well as absorb pain in megadoses. But none of it would register without Ms. Rapace's singular combination of eerie beauty and feral intensity. She's a movie star unlike any other.

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88

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

Yes, it’s pretty much a must to have seen the first film. Where Dragon Tattoo felt like fall, Played with Fire was shot in the Swedish summer, which suits the faster pace, ramped up violence and fresh collection of supporting players -- cops, a kickboxer, and a couple of borderline Bond villains.

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88

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A firecracker of a story - sharply written, superbly acted, and fast-paced.

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88

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Girl Who Played With Fire is very good, but a step down from “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” if only because that film and its casting were so fresh and unexpected.

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83

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

I found The Girl Who Played With Fire more gripping than "Dragon Tattoo," because this one doesn't just play with thriller conventions -- it puts them to work.

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80

NPR Bob Mondello

Like most second parts of trilogies, this movie is more or less all middle.

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75

St. Petersburg Times Steve Persall

It's a welcome chance to learn more about Lisbeth Salander, the kinky, punk hacker and pop culture phenom played by Noomi Rapace.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

At its simplest, "Fire" tells of Mikael's efforts to exonerate Lisbeth. At its most baroque, it explores a vast web of sex trafficking and deep-rooted conspiracy that goes back decades and touches on Lisbeth's inflammatory background.

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75

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Relentless suspense allows The Girl Who Played With Fire to hold you in a viselike grip. But it’s the performances of Nyqvist and especially Rapace that keep you coming back for more.

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75

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

The story is far from finished; the film can't help but feel like a bridge to its end. But the power of that partnership forged in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" remains strong.

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75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This is no-nonsense, let's-get-to-it business, and will probably be less satisfying, and less clear, to viewers unfamiliar with the source material.

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70

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Director Daniel Alfredson grounds the mystery in a real sense of place: his Stockholm looks and feels like a major city where corruption lurks behind attractive facades. The reporter character is better developed than in the first movie, but most of the supporting characters from the book have been shrunk to little more than walk-ons.

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70

Village Voice John Patterson

Stripped of Larsson's social/political minutiae and slimmed down to its thriller chassis, certain clichés become more glaring: Lisbeth's superhuman hacking skills, overfamiliar from a zillion TV procedurals; an exploitative lesbian sex scene that mightn't have pleased the feminist Larsson; the secondary villain, a blond giant incapable of feeling pain--gah!; and the too-comfy manner in which the twin narratives finally interlace.

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70

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Ms. Rapace, 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.

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70

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

There's way too much plot here getting in the way of the story, which makes it tough for Alfredson and cinematographer Peter Mokrosinski to focus on the series' strongest elements. Of course it's the character of Lisbeth that has made these books and movies into a worldwide phenomenon.

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70

Time Richard Corliss

In Rapace, it has an actress who brings a memorable literary character to indelible movie life, as Vivien Leigh did for Scarlett O'Hara.

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67

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Resembles nothing so much as a workmanlike TV crime thriller.

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67

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

A solid, twisting, well-acted mystery, but it strains credulity at times, and its ultimate revelations are unsurprising and, when you think back on the whole film, confusing. It also lacks a distinctive atmosphere, shot in an almost TV-style flatness.

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65

Movieline Stephanie Zacharek

Suspenseful in a few places and absurd in plenty of others; if she were a real person, Lisbeth Salander herself would have no patience with it.

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63

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

A passable popcorn movie, but fans of the first film who expect lightning to strike twice are liable to get burned.

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63

USA Today Claudia Puig

The villains are so extreme that they come off like sleazy caricatures. This accentuates the nuanced skill of the two lead performances, but it undercuts the overall effect of this well-constructed, if occasionally flat, pulp thriller.

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63

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Whenever The Girl Who Played With Fire threatens to stall, Lisbeth whips out her Taser and tortures another sleazy, abusive man into vomiting forth his dirty secrets. In Sweden, I believe they call this “light entertainment.’’

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63

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The second film lingers less determinedly on the degradation of Lisbeth and concentrates more on moving the narrative furniture around. The relationship between the main characters is the glue holding the balsa wood together.

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63

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

All too often, the second movie of a trilogy is a bridge. ("The Matrix Reloaded," anyone?) As often as not, it feels more like the first half of the last movie than a film in its own right. The Girl Who Played With Fire is no exception.

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60

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Those who've read and loved the book should be satisfied, but it's reasonable to hope for more from the final entry.

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60

Boxoffice Magazine Tim Cogshell

In any case, The Girl Who Played with Fire works well as a stand-alone feature, though it's more fun if you've seen the first film.

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60

Arizona Republic Kerry Lengel

Despite the lethal force that inevitably gets applied to poor Lisbeth, we never really fear for her safety, but we do fear for her future happiness. That is where the real drama lies.

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60

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

Though play with fire she might, couldn’t screenwriter Jonas Frykberg have played with a little button called DELETE? There’s no reason why a two-hour movie should feel like three, nor require quite so much fidelity to Larsson’s plot curlicues.

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50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

More disappointingly, the entire cast seems less committed than they were the first time out.

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50

Variety Boyd Van Hoeij

This subpar Nordic crimer, leaves ample room for improvement for the inevitable U.S. remake.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

It’s refreshing to have a movie assume that its viewers are also readers, yet this one takes that assumption to testing lengths. To those fearful of flunking the test, my advice is simple: Bring along the book as your cheat-sheet.

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50

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The Girl Who Played With Fire's chief frustration is in how removed Salander and Blomkvist are from each other.

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25

New York Post Kyle Smith

Almost without exception, the men are either sickening deviants or wise mentors while the ladies tend to be kickboxing hipsters or victims of sexual abuse (many are both).

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Robb B. gave it an8:
It's exciting, but why does the director insist upon using white subtitles, often on a white background? Movie making has made great strides forward, not to have viewers frustrated.

Carlos F. gave it a10:
Great movie. One of my favourites. Don't judge it based on its predecessor.

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