Through September 9th

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Rated R; 129 minutes.

WATCH THE TRAILER

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times,

The girl is an enigma. She has a dragon tattoo, she plays with fire, she kicks a hornet's nest. These are not personality traits. Noomi Rapace returns as Lisbeth Salander, electrifying in last year's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." She didn't look like your average young heroine. Lean but not skinny, taut but not muscular, solemn rather than gamine. Her mastery of computers allowed her to hack into almost any information, and the hatred of men's violence against women gave her a motive.

We learn in the second movie based on a Stieg Larsson thriller a little more about her childhood, and her fiery relationship with her father. What we don't learn is why she is content to live the life of a hermit, requiring very little human company. Even when she lends a woman her apartment for a year and makes love with her the night she moves in, it seems more like a social gesture.

If you saw the earlier film, or have read the novels, you'll recognize some of the key players here. But you can walk in as a first-timer and understand. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is back as an investigative journalist, his Millennium magazine is negotiating with a researcher and her boyfriend to learn the names and details of trafficking in women between Russia and Sweden, and famous men are implicated as clients.

film website