The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Movie Review
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Movie Review
Directed by David Fincher. Starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Robin Penn, Joely Richardson, Christopher Plummer.
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I suppose it's unfair to compare The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — a big budget, big studio, big star, big director, big screen retelling — to its source material in Stieg Larsson's 2006 shocking political mystery novel, or the character-driven, absorbing 2009 Swedish television 2-parter (later released joined and limited in US theaters) … so I won't. [But please — read our review of the original]
Oscar-nominated David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opens with one of the most exhilarating, dynamic credits sequences in recent memory — true, the director is known for such; but this, coupled with a raucous, strident twist on Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Karen O — brings to mind a most elaborate, oil-drenched James Bond titles opener as imagined by Japanese cyberpunk auteur Shinya Tsukamoto. Then the vivid visuals abruptly segue into the staid, paint-by-numbers world in which we will spend the next two hours and 40 minutes.
The linearly told tale trails tenacious, troubled crusading reporter Mikael Blomkvist (a surly Daniel Craig) and his unlikely assistant, Lisbeth Salander (a surly Rooney Mara), a misandristic, mistrustful hacker and surveillance wunderkind. The pair are on a quest to solve the religion-driven cold-case murders of so-called fallen women perpetrated in the cold regions of Stockholm's outskirts. Paramount among the dead damsels is teenager Harriet (Moa Garpendal), who mysteriously disappeared from her prominent, wealthy, and Nazi-rampant family fold back in 1966. Blomkvist and Salander each have their own reasons for wanting to bring closure to the distant crime spree, but since neither character is especially compelling — and since they don't meet and bond until some 90 minutes into the film — we are left with caring only about the capture of the killer.
As one might expect from the director of Seven, Zodiac, et al, this hard-R feature doesn't flinch away from the violence (there are a few brutal rape scenes) nor the chill-factor (crime scene photos of desecrated bodies; a drawn and quartered kitty-cat). The smartly chosen cast — including Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård and Julian Sands as frosty blond (and possibly murderous) anti-Semites — helps add to the gravity and gloom, but without an emotional investment, there isn't much else to sustain the suspense.
I wanted more pizzazz and deeper, more nuanced characterizations from Fincher and co., but for those who have no context regarding pervious Larsson presentations this story-driven procedural may be well be good enough.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson
**Check out my interview with the orignal tattooed girl, NOOMI RAPACE here.