Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey

Rapace moves through the escalating exposure with a series of subtle shifts that are both painful and exquisite to watch. The actress can make eye contact seem like salt in an open wound.

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

The good news is that Alfredson finds his footing in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and delivers a rousing, grueling, almost operatically scaled finale to the series.

Tampa Bay Times by Steve Persall

For the initiated, however, Alfredson weaves a tidy web from loose ends left dangling.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

The movie features a great finish, where three movies' worth of subplots and characters dovetail into a breathtaking climax and final confrontation that is positively soul satisfying.

Empire by Kim Newman

A pick-up after the second film, if not as assured as the first. Rapace sets a high watermark for Rooney Mara in David Fincher's remakes.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

So what has happened is that this uptight, ferocious, little gamin Lisbeth has won our hearts, and we care about these stories and think there had better be more.

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

An entertaining thriller. That said, it's the weakest of the films, falling a length or two behind "The Girl Who Played with Fire," and considerably more than that with respect to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

Hornet's Nest is talky but indisputably terrific, and it ends in a dazzling display of courtroom fireworks. Rapace is hot stuff in any language. Oscar, take heed.

Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan

The final, deeply satisfying conclusion to the trilogy of Swedish thrillers based on Stieg Larsson's bestselling novels.

San Francisco Chronicle by Amy Biancolli

"Hornet's Nest" isn't the best of the three (that would be the first film, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), but it's the most challenging.

Chicago Reader by Andrea Gronvall

In place of romance there are numerous talky espionage scenes that make the movie feel like one of those labyrinthine cold war pictures from the 60s.

Variety

Benefits from edge-of-your-seat pacing despite a conspicuous lack of action.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

Mostly an epic rehash of the tale Larsson has already told, and that makes it, at two hours and 28 minutes, the first movie in the series that never catches fire.

Village Voice by Melissa Anderson

Like the first two Millennium movies, this final installment feels thoughtlessly put together, its script unpruned and rushed through, all to capitalize on the staggering worldwide popularity of its dead author.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

Larsson is renowned for his attention to marginal details, which gives his prose a rambling, one-thing-after-another pace that many readers find soothing. Onscreen, the lack of acceleration makes for one of those long Scandinavian winter nights.

Time Out by Joshua Rothkopf

This can't be a faithful facsimile of the literary phenomenon currently turning soccer moms into Scandinoir crackheads. Nor can ethical journalist Mikael (Nyqvist), an uncoverer of conspiracies, actually be the dull, Windbreakered nonaction hero onscreen.