When you’ve read all three books in the Millennium trilogy and then have seen the Swedish film adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s first novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, one’s perceptions can be very skewed when sitting down to watch David Fincher’s (The Social Network, Fight Club) take on the bestselling novel. It becomes very difficult to appeal to an audience with a strong sense of how the characters should look and act; and so that is the challenge for Mr. Fincher and the team behind the latest film adaptation face this week.
In case you know nothing about the book or the films, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about a an investigative journalist named Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) who, after being convicted of libel, is hired to investigate the disappearance of a girl by a very wealthy businessman named Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Mikael enlists the help of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a young computer hacker and “social incompetent, “in order to help solve the 40 year old case of Harriet Vanger’s disappearance.
Fincher brings to life one of the greatest adult stories since The Da Vinci Code but unlike Ron Howard, he brings the necessary style that one would associate with both the film’s characters, namely Salander and Blomkvist, and his traditional filmmaking approach. The film is clean, it’s dark, and moves rather briskly while telling an interesting story.
It wasn’t as thrilling as I’d hoped it to be. Part of the film is about the relationship that forms between Lisbeth and Mikael and it isn’t until the end where you see that Mikael has somehow broken Lisbeth’s social barrier. Additionally, fans can expect some plot changes to help differentiate the film from the Swedish one and the book. I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the changes as it completely eliminates a character and other elements that could have made the film ore exciting. For example, we only meet Holden Palmgren once and I know his role is small but his importance as a character is never really explained.
What really pulls you into the film, besides the actual mystery and amazing story, is the score by the academy award winning duo, Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor (The Social Network). They set the investigative pace and somber but curious mood that helps move the film along at Fincher’s extremely rapid pace, with all of his cuts, or extremely slow when Fincher rarely cuts. The best part though is Karen O’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song played during one of the coolest opening credit sequences I’ve seen in a long time (it may have been my favorite part of the movie).
While I wasn’t a huge fan of the film, it definitely deserves a watch as this is going to be the franchise for adults. It is a solid R-rated movie that adults can escape to when they are tired of seeing all the teens going bat-shit crazy for the Twilight films. And while it can be enjoyable, the main issues, for me at least, come with Lisbeth’s look, where Fincher decides to focus his film and how one plot change was able to derail my interest in the film, specifically during its climax. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is out right now so be sure to go give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
Rating: A well acted and stylized adaptation that’s good if you’ve never had exposure to the story before (6.2/10)
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