The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo

"Why would they remake something when they can just go see the original?" - Niels Arden Oplev

Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is a journalist who works for Millennium Magazine in Sweden. He has recently lost a libel case bought against him by a crooked businessman. Retired businessman Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) asks computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) to do some background research on Blomkvist before asking the journalist to help him uncover the mystery surrounding his niece’s disappearance in the 1960s. Blomkvist accepts the challenge and begins work on a small island inhabited by many of the Vanger family. Salander, after going through unbelievable hardships is eventually tracked down by Blomkvist and agrees to help him with the case. The two of them attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery but end up uncovering much more.

This is a good film but I have many problems with it. The first and most major problem is that there is no reason for its existence. The novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was made into an excellent feature film (review here) in 2009 and this version brings nothing new to the table except that it is in English for all the stupid/lazy tw*ts who can’t be arsed reading subtitles. I do not see the point in making this film other than to fill the pockets of Hollywood and to further dumb down English speaking audiences. It isn’t even as though the Swedish version is difficult to come by. I spotted it in my local HMV for less that £5 just a few days ago. It. Is. Pointless.

My second major problem is Daniel Craig’s accent, or lack there of. The film is set in Sweden with a fine cast of mostly British and American actors doing faux Swedish accents. Craig however uses his own English accent despite his character being called Mikael Blomkvist. Why have everyone else doing the accent but not the star? It bugged me throughout the whole film. My third problem was that the ending was changed quite considerably. I won’t give it away but it differs from both the book and the original film and is my view not as good.

Rant over. Not all is bad with the film. It is generally well made and if I had to choose and American director to direct it then I’d probably have chosen David Fincher. This is very much his territory. The best part of the film for me was the opening credits which were brilliant. The black animation over a cover of Led Zeppelin’s The Immigrant Song made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s one of the best titles sequences I’ve seen in years. I also thought that the film was very well cast. Rooney Mara is equal to Noomi Rapace in her portrayal of Salander and is worthy of her Oscar nomination. I also thought that Christopher Plummer was very good and that Hollywood Swede Stellen Skarsgard was fantastic. Daniel Craig who I like very much was also excellent at times but gave an uneven performance. In one vital scene towards the end in which he is enduring physical and mental pain, he felt a little bland and it wasn’t very believable. Overall though he was very good.

The film is a little less daring than the Swedish version with many of the more brutal scenes being toned down. This is understandable as US audiences are perhaps not used to the levels of violence in the original. Nevertheless it is still a violent and disturbing film. My favourite scene in this and in the original is Lisbeth’s revenge sequence which is done superbly here.

Overall this is a good film but lacks the tension of the original. Every part seems slightly less heightened and watered down but it is still a decent thriller. My main problem as I’ve already stated is that there is no reason for it to exist.     

6/10