The Girl who kicked the hornet's nest **

At the start, we learnt that Stieg Larsson's three bestsellers would be filmed back-to-back, which seemed like a great idea, but it was not.

The first film was superbly done but the first director stepped aside and the director of the second and third films struggled with a labyrinthine plot, from which crucial sections of the book had been chopped out. Thus the third film, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest has problems. Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) is the enigmatic centre of the trilogy, but in this final story she does not have much screen time and scarcely says a word. It's all about Blomkamp (Michael Nyqvist), who is trying to uncover the corrupt network of spies created by Lisbeth's father. I pity the hapless soul who wanders into this movie without having seen the previous two or read the books and tries to make sense of it. The second and third films are entangled in multiple plots and narratives that have sucked all the vitality and drama out of Lisbeth's story. The trilogy seems to have had the best intentions, but we all know where those lead.

PARANORMAL 2***

The good news is that this second film (in what promises to become a series) is just as eerie and downright terrifying as the first. Once again, there is very little ostensible plot. It's presented as a documentary about an ordinary house in which an ordinary family lives. They have set up a bunch of security cameras in the house, some for security, but also because they like to track the kids as they move around the house. We in the audience get to see other things as well. There's a door that sways open and shut, even when there is not a breath of wind. There are shadows that ought not to be there. The audience is left to spot the tiny, puzzling details and to shriek at the kick-in-the-guts shock moments. A synopsis would spoil it, but it's extremely scary and surprisingly entertaining. It's a refreshing, small-scale shocker that is so much better than the pompous tedium into which the horror franchises such as Saw have sunk.

STOUTE BOUDJIES0 Stars

This is easily the worst South African film I have seen in the last 20 years, but I know it will rake in truckloads of loot. The title translates as "cheeky bums" and there are plenty of those on view, male and female, gorgeous and gross. They are matched with boobs of all varieties, bared for the delectation on the masses. The story is as skimpy as the parade of G-strings that introduce the film. Two young men, one lean and handsome and the other fat and clumsy, are determined to lose their virginity. The lean boy's goal is to find a summer job but, in a lengthy montage, he is constantly rejected. His theory is that because he is white and Afrikaans, the employers turn him away. It does not occur to him that being stupid, lazy, arrogant and sex-mad has anything to do with it. There's not a single scene in which the F-word is not used, along with every other obscenity you can imagine. It's badly made, with lousy editing and a music score that sounds as if they lifted scraps from generic, synthetic music. There's not a shred of logic to the plot, especially not the scenes in the sperm bank, but it goes without saying that the film will be a hit, especially with wild teen party-crowd in Margate.