Girl in the Spider's Web, The

Stars: Claire Foy, Sverrir Gudnason, Sylvia Hoeks, Stephen Merchant, Vicky Krieps, Christopher Convery, Lakeith Stanfield, Cameron Britton

Director: Fede Alvarez

The further adventures of Dragon Tattoo girl Lisbeth Salander (Foy taking over from Rooney Mara) make a decent enough thriller in its own right, if rather a long way from the original concept, taking our bike-riding, leather-clad Swedish hacker into a Bond-style action pic about the battle to acquire a computer program that enables its possessor to access the world's nuclear arsenals. As if.

There's a boy genius (Convery) who knows the code to open the program, a villainess (Hoeks) dressed all in red, a blond assassin (Britton) and even a Bond-style taster at the start, as Lisbeth teaches a wife-beater a lesson.

The largely Stockholm-set action is explosively well staged by director Alvarez, who keeps up a good gallop, and our heroine's ingenuity knows no bounds, including a rather neat escape from a blazing apartment by plunging into a bath of water.

It is, however, all faintly old hat, despite a stylised and improbable backstory that takes Lisbeth on a journey into her past that she could do without. Like her character, it's professional but forgettable.

David Quinlan

UK/Sweden/Germany/USA 2018. UK Distributor: Sony (Columbia). Colour by efilm.
114 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 1, Swearing 1.

Review date: 19 Nov 2018