“The Girl in the Spider’s Web” is a movie adaptation of the novel of the same name. The main characters are from the “Dragon Tattoo” franchise. This relates to the book series, and then turned into movies, written by Stieg Larsson. Since he passed away, his creation has continued to grow. The main ‘girl’ is Lisbeth Salander, and now she is played by a different actress and tells a different story. But she still keeps her cool and curt attitude, and her special computer hacking skills. This story goes into the past, and it plays with the current time in Sweden.

Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) is a stealth protector of women in need, and the champion of small children in distress. Her methods of vengeance are swift and very costly, if you are a man who abuses a woman. She helps a wife of a famous businessman who has just been released from a trial after roughing up some prostitutes. He takes out his anger on his wife’s face. But Salander is an avenging angel to give this bad dude some rough treatment of his own. There is a new person who asks Salander for help. It is Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant), a computer scientist from America, who has created a special program that can take over any military nuclear computer system. He hires Salander to hack into the NSA, and move the program her own laptop.

Edwin Neeham (LaKeith Stanfield) who is an NSA employee discovers the program is missing, and it was transferred to Sweden. He goes to Sweden to track it down, and he learns of Salander. Salander has also been targeted by a shadowy group, called the Spiders, has also targeted Salander. They steal her laptop and destroy her apartment, and she barely survives. But between Needham and the Spider thugs, Salander is being chased from all sides. Plus the National Swedish Security group is after her. Balder, the computer scientist is killed, and Salander gets his young son to take care of him. Salander will need some help, so she contacts an old friend Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason), the journalist who had helped her in previous adventures.

Salander’s past catches up with her – because her difficulties with the Spiders takes a weird turn. The group is led by someone that she thought was long dead. Camilla Salander (Sylvia Hoeks) is Lisbeth’s sister, but Lizbeth had fled the family home when she was just a young girl. Camilla was trapped with her pervert father, and she grew up with his sick demands. But she learned his devious ways to take over his criminal syndicate and then called it the ‘Spiders’. Needham and Blomkvist team up with Salander to fight against her sister, and her sinister group. They now hold the special program on Salander’s laptop, and they have taken Balder’s son, who is the key to gaining access to the Military hacking program.

This movie has a quick pace and some tense moments of intense action. However, there are sequences that show how far ahead Salander has planned out every potential activity – that it begins to be absurd. Salander has become an indestructible computer genius that can program and hack her way into and out of every situation. She is an emotionless automated fighting and thinking machine, sort of a “Salander Bourne”. Claire Foy does a very precise job making Salander an enigma wrapped in a MMA fighter. LaKeith Stanfield does a very entertaining job as the NSA agent ready to take out anyone in his way. Sverrir Gudnason does not have as much to hold to for his role.

They various locations and setting around Sweden are used to great advantage. They are beautiful to see, and they are used to portray the coldness of the country. The story line gets a bit stretched out, so that people are doing things that would be close to impossible. Salander becomes a martial-art trained fighter, and Needham becomes a high-powered sniper, and so on. However, if you get past that, the story is delivered in a quickly paced manner that gets your pulse racing in some spots.

If you were expecting that “Mile 22” is some type of sequel to Eminem’s “8 Mile”, well, put that idea out of your head. If you are prepared to “Lose Yourself” in an overly complicated movie full of bloody violence and gory death scenes, then you’re in the right place. At least both of these movies feature an ex-rapper in the starring role. But Mark Wahlburg takes the non-musical approach to a tough CIA special operative out to move a valuable asset from the US Embassy to the airport. But for these 22 miles, he and his team are under fire and under duress. They are part of a super-secret operation that only does the dirtiest of dirty jobs for the government.

James Silva (Mark Wahlberg) is part of this unique operation called ‘Overwatch’, and they have a job to do. They are taking down a Russian safe house, located in a beautiful suburb outside of Washington DC. But in the chaos of the operation a teenage Russian boy gets shot and killed. The operatives walk away with a sack full of hard drives and leave a bunch of dead Russians in the house. They don’t give it another thought. But wheels have been set into motion that will come back to haunt them later. But it is time to break to Two Years Later, and to another country…

Silva and some fellow operatives are later located in a (fictitious) Southeastern Asian country. Alice Kerr (Lauren Cohan) and Samantha Snow (Ronda Rousey) work with Silva to retrieve some stolen nuclear material. The Intel is all wrong, and the source is a local Army officer named Li Noor (Iko Uwais). Silva gets all worked up, because his character is prone to long-winded speeches about how everyone around him is dumb. Li Noor comes to the US Embassy and turns himself in. He wants to make a deal — but only if he is taken to America. He has a hard drive with all the details of the missing MacGuffin materials, but it will self-destruct unless he gives them the password.

The ‘Overwatch’ team kicks into high gear, lead by Bishop (John Malkovich). They have only the best tech and the biggest guns, so these guys will never lose, right? Silva and his team must transport Li Noor from the Embassy to the airport for a pickup and a flight to the States. They have it all planned out, until the plan gets shredded by the local country’s secret police and undercover spies. There is an attempt on Li Noor’s life while he is in the Embassy. So you know once they leave, their convoy of vehicles will be under attack for every minute of the trip. One by one, Silva’s team members are shot and or exploded (or worse). Li Noor is in handcuffs, but eventually Silva relents and gives him the freedom to fight back.

After many minutes of non-stop fighting and explosions and high-caliber rounds being shot, Silva gets Li Noor and Alice to the rendezvous point. All is well at that point. But then there are some deeper secrets that are revealed. There are call backs to the first scene with the Russian safe house and some things that are not quite as straightforward as they seem. The plot gets twisted around like a Bavarian pretzel. And there isn’t any good German beer to go with the pretzel…

“Mile 22” is the fourth collaboration between Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg. The other movies were based on a true story, and this is the first that is fictional. But the concept was done before. Think “The Gauntlet”, with Clint Eastwood. And then again see “16 Blocks” with Bruce Willis. The basic plot of somebody needing to get someone else to a particular place is not exactly new. Dressing it up as a secret undercover operation is new, and adding about ten layers of double-cross is somewhat new.

Wahlberg plays a character that is very unlikable, and he commands a tight unit. They are supposed to be the most elite unit. But for this operation, they look like a bunch of buffoons. The movie goes into depth about how special this team is, and how important they are. But what is shown is an orgy of automatic weapons and a whole slew of stupid decisions.

The writing is bi-polar, giving Wahlberg little mini-speeches where his character goes off on vulgar tangents. The overall twist in the plot has way too many holes. The editing and frantic pace gets you feeling very jittery after a while. You never get a clear understanding of the progress to the goal. Have they gone 10 miles, or 15 miles? Who can tell? Plus the actual action of the journey to the airport does not begin until the last third of the movie.

Peter Berg has worked with Mark Wahlberg on other, much better projects. “Lone Survivor”, “Deepwater Horizon” and “Patriot’s Day” are very excellent movies. But now they have teamed up for this one, which you might like, or you might not. With “Mile 22”, your mileage may vary.