I was recently fortunate enough to see the final installment of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series at the theatre and found that I was not disappointed. We pick up at the close of the last book with Lisbeth Salander waking up in a university hospital with injuries from her run in with Alexander Zalachenko in the last movie. She is battered and broken and will be going on trial for attempted murder but defiantly refuses to speak to her doctor or her lawyer at first even though they are working to help her. But in the way that Lisbeth does, our heroine manages to command the respect and loyalty of those around her.Ultimately this amounts to a movie about Lisbeth's trial with a little intrigue and action thrown in but the part that makes it compelling is that all the things you've watched Lisbeth go through in the last two films come to a head. Without giving too much away we are finally able to see Lisbeth benefit from her take no prisoners attitude and come out on top to a certain extent which is incredibly satisfying.
However what the movie does well with respect to it's karmic attitude towards Lisbeth, also comes off in this instance as a little self serving and unlikely based on the context which has been set up in the rest of the series. That said I'm willing to forgive a little pandering to the audience if only because any other ending would have been insincere. What's more, the last scene manages to be surprising and honest enough that it also counteracts the awkwardness of some of the resolutions.
All in all the series is definitely worth watching and makes me want to have a look at the books. I'm hoping that a little of the pandering can be explained by the translation to a new medium but ultimately I don't really care. This series is the source of one of the most compelling (and well acted) heroines in recent memory and is entirely worth a viewing. While neither of the sequels can outstrip the original film, they are of a better quality than a good deal of the current offerings out there.
