The Girl in the Spider’s Web is one of the very few movies this year that I was pleasantly surprised about. I haven’t had a very good run of entertaining films so far this year, most of them have either been so bad I fell asleep or just not as good as I was expecting.

If you don’t know anything about this movie that’s not necessarily a bad thing although this film is actually the second movie made based on a series of books by Stieg Larsson and later David Lagercrantz (who wrote the book this movie is based on). The first film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo featuring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander was like a super jolt for her career and it didn’t hurt that the movie itself was actually pretty decent, too.

So our girl Lisbeth Salander (now played by Claire Foy) seems to continue living life on the edge as a hacker for hire making enemies left, right and centre. The way that Lisbeth lives her life is the crux of the film as it really is her story with bits and pieces thrown in from other minor characters. Having survived a childhood rife with abuse from a sadistic father, Lisbeth is a cold, guarded tech-wiz extraordinaire that lives day by day in the darkness, never getting close to anyone and always on the lookout for trouble (of which there is plenty). Not a particularly nice way to live – always looking over your shoulder, but I think Lisbeth secretly enjoys life on the edge. She certainly knows how to look after herself both online and in the real world when trouble finally comes knocking, and it’s this aspect of her personality I enjoy the most.

This time around Lisbeth comes face to face with a ghost from her past, and as the film unfolds, we begin to see that when she ran from her broken life, she left behind people who needed her. Lisbeth discovers this all too late of course, and finds herself in hot water again with an unknown enemy, someone who also likes hiding in plain sight. Lisbeth’s relationship with Journalist friend/lover Mikael Blomkvist is rekindled out of pure desperation on Lisbeth’s behalf, and one by one the pieces slowly start to form a bigger picture.

Lisbeth is again the unlikely hero who wears a cold exterior for the world that doesn’t know her, but briefly exposes kindness and generosity of spirit to those she cares about. As things progress, Lisbeth realises that she has also become Public Enemy number one for the NSA when she hacks another hacker and exposes herself and everyone close to her to a legion of bad guys after the bounty.

It’s a nice little follow=up to the previous film although I wouldn’t bother counting the Rooney Mara / David Craig iteration in this group. Skip that and go straight to this if you’re wanting a better understanding of what the books are about.

Darksider Confessions Rating: 3/5 Stars – Claire Foy picks up straightaway where Noomi Rapace left off and does a damn good job of it. Well worth the watch.