MOVIE REVIEW- Damaged damsel: <i>Hornet's Nest </i>a stirring wrap to trilogy

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Lisbeth Salander makes a transfixing heroine precisely because she has nothing but scorn for such a role. Embodied here for the third time by Noomi Rapace, she's battered, angry and hostile, even toward those who would be her friends. Some of the suspense in the final courtroom showdown of "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" comes from the excellent question of whether she would rather be found guilty than provide anyone with the satisfaction of hearing her testify in her own defense.

By the time she comes to what is essentially a sanity hearing, she has returned to the ranks of punk fashionistas, with the black leather pants and jacket, the boots, the studs and buckles, the spikes, the body piercings, the eyeliner that looks like protective armor, and the stark black crest of her hair. She sits sullen and silent in the courtroom, as if saying, "I care nothing for you, although I have spent hours working on my look in front of the mirror."... [full review]