When Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy was published posthumously in 2005 it seemed easy to see why it captured the international imagination.
In the pre-MeToo era Larsson's androgynous-looking, queer, computer-hacking heroine bent on revenge against abusive men, Lisbeth Salander, offered a prescient alternative James Bond figure for those outside the ambit of state agencies.
When it became time to adapt the hugely successful novels to film, the Swedes did an admirable job with a trio of films starring Noomi Rapace as Salander and the late Michael Nyqvist as her crusading journalist partner Mikael Blomkvist.
They pared down much of the dull, anti-capitalist forensic details of the novels while still managing not to make the films simple, save the world, kick-ass affairs.
Of course, this was not good enough for Hollywood, where anything with subtitles is not about to go untouched and so in 2011 we were treated to a lacklustre English reboot of the first book in the series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher and starring Rooney Mara as Salander.
The reception was lukewarm and so a complete trilogy was shelved ... until now. That's thanks to the 2015 sequel to Larsson's original series written by David Lagercrantz, titled The Girl in the Spider's Web, which has now made its way to screens directed by Fede Alvarez and starring Claire Foy as Salander.
WATCH | The trailer for The Girl in the Spider's Web..