Reader Jury

Adapted from the second book of Stieg Larsson’s best-selling trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire is a lean, muscular thriller that pulls no punches in its depictions of the cruelty meted out to the morally-conflicted characters. Daniel Alfredson’s film is every bit as dark, brooding and unsettling as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, with scenes of gruesome and graphic violence that are never gratuitous. The director doesn’t waste a single frame, concealing the twists in the novel until the last minute for maximum impact. The tightly wound narrative ensures the 124-minute running time passes all too quickly, powered by an electrifying performance from Rapace as the avenging angel. Supporting performances are equally compelling, lighting the fuse on the concluding chapter, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (Cert 15, 96 mins, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) Starring Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller, Boris Kodjoe, Shawn Roberts, Kim Coates, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Kacey Barnfield, Norman Yeung, Spencer Locke, Sienna Guillory **

Four years after the T-virus engineered by the Umbrella Corporation swept the globe, transforming the infected into the ravenous undead, Alice (Milla Jovovich) heads to Alaska in search of survivors. Unfolding in 3D on Blu-ray, the fourth instalment of the Resident Evil series welcomes back British film-maker Paul WS Anderson to the helm for all the usual flesh-hungry zombies and blood-spattered action sequences. Alas, Afterlife doesn’t scare us once and the action sequences feel pedestrian. There is scant emotion amid the barbarity – even Chris and Claire’s potentially-moving reunion is a non-event. Characters run for their lives for much of the film, huffing and puffing when they aren’t delivering Anderson’s turgid dialogue. A four-disc DVD box set of all the films is also available.