The Girl in the Spider's Web

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: November 9, 2018

4.9	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 108 Ratings

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TalulaGreyJan 18, 2019

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. First of all, if you are expecting this film to be like the book, you will be disappointed. I expected more and although I did read the book I was not expecting a carbon copy. Two of the biggest problems were the editing, and the story. Production values were pretty good. I liked the coldness of Sweden and it was captured very well. The airport scene was pretty fake but I could live with that. The story itself was not as good as the book but at the same time I only gave the book 2 and a half stars on goodreads. Lets face it, David Lagercrantz is no Stieg Larsson, not even close! The screenwriters made it even worse. I also need to add that they changed Lisbeth's story. According to Stieg Larsson, Lisbeth and her sister were sent to foster homes after she set her father on fire. In this story the sister lived with the father afterwards. It made no sense because of what I already knew about Lisbeth's past. So yeah, had to take points off for that one. Now to the acting. I love Clair Foy but she is no Lisbeth Salander. And although she was the only one in the film that could act, she was not believable as Lisbeth. Sverrir Gudnason as Mikael Blomkvist was another fail. It seemed to me that he played no real part because the stuff he did, Lisbeth could have done herself. Sylvia Hoeks as Camilla Salander was lame because Camilla was supposed to be drop dead beautiful. The most laughable was having Andreja Pejić as Lisbeth's lover. She used to be a male but is now a female. She still has an adam's apple for god's sake! And it was so obviously a political move to have her there. Thanks Hollywood, lol.

So overall, I'm not impressed at all. I give it 3 out of 10 and that's for the scenery/production, but that's it. I do not recommend this film, especially if you have to pay to see it. It'll be on TV soon enough. It's the kind of show you can watch on a Sunday when you're hungover from the night before.… Expand

3 of 3 users found this helpful30

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RudygerDec 4, 2018

At least, we wanted a sequel to the Fincher's first film. I don't think this Jason Bourne clone will satisfy any fan of the books.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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rmcarthurNov 16, 2018

This film comes nowhere close to matching the quality of the earlier films about Lisbeth Salander. Those films were believable, artfully nuanced, carefully plotted and with strong characterizations. This one has a ridiculous mcguffin,This film comes nowhere close to matching the quality of the earlier films about Lisbeth Salander. Those films were believable, artfully nuanced, carefully plotted and with strong characterizations. This one has a ridiculous mcguffin, cardboard characters, plot holes, an impregnable fortress impregnated, escape proof structures escaped, impossible situations, astounding coincidences, and lastly, indifferent acting. The emphasis is on violence and action. What we really have here is just a poor knock off of the James Bond genre. Skip this one and buy or rent the originals.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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GrazhopperNov 13, 2018

We wanted Fincher, Mara, Craig and Part 2 & 3, but we got Alvarez, Foy and Part 4 instead.
Good job Sony, next time you better listen to your audience !!!

4 of 5 users found this helpful41

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imthenoobJan 17, 2019

The quality across the board (cast, writing and directing) suffers a major drop off and it shows throughout the movie. Foy doesn't even compare to Mara and feels very out of place. While the original had a great male lead in Daniel Craig,The quality across the board (cast, writing and directing) suffers a major drop off and it shows throughout the movie. Foy doesn't even compare to Mara and feels very out of place. While the original had a great male lead in Daniel Craig, This reboot has Stephen Merchant and a few other no names attached that fail to bring the presence that Craig had in the original. And the subpar story is filled with weak action scenes that fail to excite and a plot that has a pretty bland and straightforward "mystery".

This isn't the sequel/reboot we should have gotten and it's a shame for them to bury a promising franchise all because they wasted years putting out a sequel.… Expand

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

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UncleWillardJun 16, 2019

Worst adaptation yet. Claire Foy was totally the wrong pick. She looks like a mom's Halloween version of the main character. The plot us ridiculous and her acting is terrible.

2 of 3 users found this helpful21

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namelessNov 12, 2018

I thought the directin and editing worked but the actress just kept pulling me out of the movie. It was more like an acting exercise... watch me do this, and now I'm going to do this. This is definitely a watch on cable so you can get to theI thought the directin and editing worked but the actress just kept pulling me out of the movie. It was more like an acting exercise... watch me do this, and now I'm going to do this. This is definitely a watch on cable so you can get to the interesting parts and move past all the miscast emotive bits.… Expand

2 of 4 users found this helpful22

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Rebecca31Nov 24, 2018

I read the book just before seeing the film but I shouldn't have went to such effort because it doesn't look like anyone else involved in the making of The Girl in the Spider's Web bothered to read it. In all fairness to Claire Foy, thisI read the book just before seeing the film but I shouldn't have went to such effort because it doesn't look like anyone else involved in the making of The Girl in the Spider's Web bothered to read it. In all fairness to Claire Foy, this isn't her fault, she shows up and does her best but the Lisbeth Salander portrayed in this sequel barely resembles her character from the original Dragon Tattoo trilogy.

Lisbeth Salander is a pierced, mohawk sporting, leather jacked wearing vigilante not to be messed with, "the righter of wrongs, the girl who hurts men to who hurts women." She's hired by the horribly miscast Stephen Merchant (Frans Balder) to steal back firefall. An evil computer programme that in the wrong hands would give the user the power of a god, you know access to nuclear codes and all that other generic Bond villain stuff. Yet as the trailer clearly shows you Lisbeth gets caught up in a whole web of spies and cybercriminals. But just incase you forgot this is called The Girl in the Spider's Web, lots of little spiders show up at random points in the film to remind you. Throw in the villain humming a very menacing version of the Itsy Bitsy Spider and I'm sorry but I'm done. This film is badly written, badly paced and I'm struggling to find anything I liked about it. The third time we've seen Lisbeth Salander onscreen, the unfinished David Fincher remake starring Rooney Mara is barely worth mentioning it's that forgettable. A shot by shot remake that doesn't have the atmosphere of the original. It never needed a remake and now we have Claire Foy taking on the role in a sequel. Perhaps so desperate to play a character completely different from her previous roles and although Foy is trying her best and she certainly looks the part, she doesn't have the same on screen presence that Noomi Rapace has. The changes to Salander's character are pointless and borderline insulting. It needed to be grittier, with a completely different story, this isn't a James Bond or a Mission Impossible movie yet that's what it felt like it was trying to be. Oh sure turn Salander into an action hero and hope to build an even bigger franchise out of it, well sorry lads you've even failed at that. A boring predictable crime movie you've seen done before only better. All The Girl in the Spider's Web did was make me want to go back and watch the original trilogy. The book was average at best but the film couldn't even be bothered to follow it. Skip this film, any major plot point has been spoiled by the trailer and you'll be able to predict the whole thing from the very start. Not recommended.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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fj007Dec 5, 2020

This is a surprisingly bad movie. It seems as if the writer, the director and the actors had no interest at all in making this movie. The casting is terrible, only some of the minor characters are really fine like Cameron Britton as PlagueThis is a surprisingly bad movie. It seems as if the writer, the director and the actors had no interest at all in making this movie. The casting is terrible, only some of the minor characters are really fine like Cameron Britton as Plague or LaKeith Stanfield as Needham. The writer(s) did not simplify the book by Larsson, which certainly would have been necessary, but completely rewrote it, dumbing it down into a caricature of an action movie in the process. While it is a strength of the books and of the other movies based on them, to embed the plot in a tight web of well-conceived characters and (sometimes) plausible depicted institutions, here all is reduced to stereotypes taken from other US-American B-movies.… Expand