Patty Jenkins's 2017 film Wonder Woman is considered a commercial breakthrough for superheroes. In fact, the cinema has long been a superhero who cares for wedges and cashes: Lisbeth Salander.

Almost ten years ago, the Swedish film version of "Verblendung", the first part of the Millennium Trilogy, started with Noomi Rapace in the lead role. This week the second reboot of the character with the third actress starts already. After Rapace and Rooney Mara this time, Claire Foy ("The Crown") is seen as a Swedish hacker with a traumatic childhood.

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"Conspiracy": Salander and her henchmen

The constant reinvention and replacement Salander has in common with Spider-Man and Hulk, otherwise the superhero comparison might not be immediately obvious. Too much had she involved Stieg Larsson, the author of the original book trilogy, in the social reality of her homeland and had been equipped with a political agenda. "Men who hate women" was the title of the book "Verblendung" in the Swedish original.

The superhuman and the all-too-human

Sociopolitical embedding and agenda are in "conspiracy", the new movie, now in vain. David Lagercrantz, who continues to write the books of his late friend Larsson since 2015, and who also wrote "Conspiracy", had already taken care of the thematic design. After the first scene of his cinema adaptation, director Fede Alvarez is now flipping cinematic chlorine: After that, every trace of Salander's feminist furor is extinguished.

What remains is a woman in black leather clothes who survives bombings, picks it up with organized crime and competing secret services, and drives furious motorcycles and of course sensationally hacks. Whether that suits you is more a question of taste than logic, because even in its original sketching, the superhuman and all to me humanity were close to each other at Salander. Salander was queer, not only in her sexuality, but also in her anchoring in various imaginations; she was a lustful avenger of her own traumas both male and female fantasy.

"Conspiracy"
Original title: "The Girl in the Spider's Web"
UK / D / SV / CAN / USA 2018
Director: Fede Alvarez
Screenplay: Fede Alvarez, Jay Basu, Steven Knight after the novel by David Lagercrantz
Performers: Claire Foy, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephen Merchant, Sylvia Hoeks, Sverrir Gudnason, Vicky Krieps
Production: MGM, New Regency et al.
Rental: Sony Pictures
Length: 117 minutes
FSK: from 16 years
Theatrical release: November 22, 2018

With much goodwill one could now say that Alvarez remains faithful to the queerness of the character: On the one hand, Salander shoots and blasts through the wintry Swedes like on a "Mission Impossible", on the other hand she is played by Claire Foy as vulnerable and approachable as never before. As in her breakthrough role as Queen Elizabeth II, or most recently in "Departing for the Moon," Foy succeeds in expressing in her characters an ordinariness that anchors her and makes her credible.

For so many nuances, Foy is the only actress to get enough script space (Alvarez along with Jay Basu and Steven Knight) and directing. The rest of the ensemble is brilliantly staffed by "The Square" star Claes Bang to "Phantom Thread" sensation Vicky Krieps, but stands as pretty as useless as a narrative decoration.

Caught cold

Even for Mikael Blomqvist, Salander's partner in crime and bed, the movie has no real use anymore. He's just one more of the henchmen who are helping Lisbeth with her fight against the spiders, an international crime network her family seems to be entangled with. Because this fight still comes against two secret services, the Swedish and the American, but Salander can use this help well.

Alvarez's ("Do not Breathe") staged the many action scenes - most of which the film series ever had - with fluid dynamics. In the numerous twists, the "conspiracy" additionally auffährt, but image design and cut missing the precision. Details are not properly captured in the picture, change of perspective is not cleverly mounted. Surprises and revelations run more side by side than catching you cold.

In the video: The trailer for "conspiracy"

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Sony Pictures

Moderately entertained, even if emotionally uninvolved, one looks at the end of "conspiracy" and wonders if it would have needed this reboot. With which Lisbeth Salander finally caught up with the superheroes of Marvel and DC.