The Girl Who Played With Fire (2010)

In most trilogies, the middle film is always awkward. Background info is required from the first entry, and the ending is wide open and bleak. Such is “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” which follows "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” If you don't know the grisly past, you'll be lost. And it ends with a literal gaping hole in the head for a coming third chapter, which also has “Girl” in the title. (A fourth film should be called, “The Girl Who Screamed, ‘I’m a Damn Woman’”)

The pyro-player is punk/hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), who is wanted by police for the slaying of two journalists, even as she hunts for the first man to ruin her life. This is her father, who she set on fire in a flashback in film one. Figuring into her life again is editor Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), employer of the slain journalists.

“Fire” lacks the spark that drove “Tattoo.” It smells of a TV police drama with dot connections galore, and sports an oddly placed body-builder villain from 007. Rapace as Lisbeth is one hell of a heroine -- silent, deadly and calculating. It’s not remotely a bad film, there just may have been no place to go but down. B