But Larsson’s genius is to locate these figures in an utterly realistic Nordic landscape described with such precision that one can smell the copious cups of coffee his characters consume and feel the cold wind funneling through Stockholm’s wintry streets even as one senses the rage at social injustice simmering beneath every sentence. Noir never has been this dark.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire,” the second Swedish film adaptation of the late author’s international best-sellers, receives a limited opening in New York and Chicago on Friday. So this gives one the opportunity to congratulate the filmmakers — writer Jonas Frykberg and director Daniel Alfredson — on their accomplishment even as one commiserates with them over the impossibility of doing full justice to Larsson’s brilliant conception.

As with the first entry, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which was made by different filmmakers, the new movie ably collapses story lines and characters down to manageable size to achieve a coherent, breathtaking race against time to solve horrific crimes. What one loses in this condensation, though, is Larsson’s angry indictment of the corruption and venality that (according to him) permeates Swedish society.

In the movie, the two heroes pursue a few freaks: a rapist, a superhuman killer and a Cold War spy. In the books, though, they go up against a vast, interconnected network of corrupt authority figures in business and government, sick with power and all aiding and abetting one another. A strong feminist subtext involving the cruelty men visit upon women runs through the crime novels as well.

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“The Book of Eli” remained the top-selling DVD and Blu-ray Disc for a second consecutive week, while box office weakling “Green Zone” opened at No. 1 on the rental chart and No. 2 on the sales charts.

Other new releases included the romantic comedy “Remember Me” at No. 4 on the DVD sales chart and No. 3 on the rental chart, and the comedy “She’s Out of My League” at No. 9 on the DVD sales chart and 6 on the rental chart.

The theatrical success of “Toy Story 3″ propelled the two previous installments in the Pixar/Disney franchise back onto the sales charts. “Toy Story 2″ was No. 3 in both overall disc sales and in Blu-ray Disc sales for the week, while the original “Toy Story” was No. 5 on DVD sales and No. 4 on the Blu-ray Disc chart.