The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story ★ ¹/₂

With a narrative that’s nearly as unwieldy as the film’s full title, this latest “Dragon Tattoo Story” from director Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe) does nothing to improve upon David Fincher’s 2011 misfire, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an English-language adaptation of a Swedish television and film series based on the popular trilogy of thrillers by late author Stieg Larsson. Death has rarely been something to stop lucrative literary franchises, however, so the continuing print adventures of world-class computer hacker Lisbeth Salander have been handled by Swedish journalist and best-selling author David Lagercrantz. Adapted from the first of his Dragon Tattoo thrillers, 2015’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, this latest film loses the leads from Fincher’s movie, recasting Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth with Claire Foy’s older version. Meanwhile, the property’s male lead, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, has grown notably younger: Daniel Craig was replaced with Swedish actor Sverrir Gudnason. And while neither casting choices are improvements, the worst is yet to come, as this film gives the formerly strong and independent heroine a backstory filled with childhood abuse, along with a handful of men to rescue her from trouble. Among them is Sorry to Bother You star Lakeith Stanfield as NSA agent Edwin Needham, a former hacker with superhuman sniper skills—simply because the climax requires it. You might want to avoid getting caught in this web. (At Assembly Row, Boston Common, Fenway, Seaport, South Bay and in the suburbs.)