David Fincher is a tough act to follow. That has been the primary thought in my mind when watching both the first trailer that was released for director Fede Alvarez's THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB and the newly released second trailer, which can be seen below. Fincher's stylish THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO blew me away when it came out in 2011, but Alvarez's follow-up (of sorts) looks, for the most part, like a run-of-the-mill, glossy studio thriller. Early on, the Lisbeth Salander character (now played by Claire Foy) is told "I need you to do the impossible", and it looks like Alvarez was asked to do the same – not just to follow in the footsteps of Fincher, but to make a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movie with Lisbeth Salander in the lead, complete with shootouts, explosions, chases, snipers, threat of a nuclear apocalypse, and the soap opera-esque inclusion of an evil sister.
Written by Steven Knight, Alvarez, and Jay Basu from a novel by David Lagercrantz, this chapter in the Lisbeth Salander saga has the following synopsis:
She is the girl with the dragon tattoo — a genius hacker and uncompromising misfit. He is a crusading journalist whose championing of the truth often brings him to the brink of prosecution.
Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female superhacker — a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well. The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it…
Foy's co-stars include Lakeith Stanfield, Claes Bang, Sylvia Hoeks, Cameron Britton, Andreja Pejić, Vickey Krieps, and Sverrir Gudnason.
I was willing to give THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB a chance, but the more I see of it, the more I think Sony has made a mistake by rebooting and recasting the franchise instead of keeping Fincher, Rooney Mara, and Daniel Craig on board for adaptations of author Stieg Larsson's DRAGON TATTOO follow-ups THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST.
But, we'll see how it pans out when THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB is released on November 9th.