Warning - nudity, violence
As with its predecessor, this film doesn't shy away with portraying sex and violence; particularly violence towards women which is arguably the crux of the story. Does it, however, offer anything new? Let's find out.I don't own any of the screenshots.
The American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is not too hard to watch, though if you've watched the 2009 version and/or read the novel, you might be inclined to be critical.
The Premise
Refer to the last review of this film and the review of the novel. Almost word for word, the storyline is the same. There are certain places where the script for this movie more closely matches the novel, than the Swedish version's take.The Characters
Daniel Craig, star of the James Bond movies, is the journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Intense gazes notwithstanding, he doesn't strike me as a Blomkvist. I'm thinking the producers chose poorly for this role.Rooney Mara as the computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. Recently saw her in Pan. She's cold and aloof, as might be expected, but she's also emotionally vulnerable and somehow fragile. This is in stark contrast to the scenes where she lets loose, and this somehow makes it even more terrifying.
Christopher Plummer plays Henrik Vanger. He reminds me a little of Sir Ian McKellan as Magneto. Way more energetic than I'd have expected from a character like Henrik Vanger, but no less shrewd.
Yorick van Wageningen tries not to ham it up as the creepy and despicable Nils Bjurman... and just barely succeeds. The result is a rather wimpy Bjurman, though the rape and torture scenes are no less brutal for it.
Stellan Skarsgård is Martin Vanger. I last saw the guy in the Exorcist: The Beginning and Thor, and damn he is superb here. Just affable enough to seem harmless but shrewd enough to run a company. And when he finally reveals his true colors, you'll see a performance you won't forget. Mesmerizing as a snake, and totally pleasant even as he's explaining just how close you are to being murdered in cold blood. He also happens to be the only Swedish actor among the main cast.
Steven Berkoff as Dirch Frode. It's a very one-note performance here and xxx does not look really comfortable in the role. Half the time he looks constipated.
Robin Wright as Erika Berger. I like watching Robin Wright, but here she manages to be even more inconsequential than the last Erika Berger, played by Lena Endre.
Tony Way is Plague, Lisbeth's computer geek associate and occasional partner-in-crime. His brief portrayal didn't do it for me. Could be due to a very limited script, but the interaction with Lisbeth felt off.
Geraldine James as Cecelia Vanger. Pretty, but nothing noteworthy here. Colder and more brusque than the 2009 incarnation.
Joely Richardson makes a late but welcome appearance as Harriet Vanger. I wondered where I'd seen this face before, and was flabbergasted to realize it was in one of my all-time favorite flicks The Patriot, where she was this hot bodacious babe in a sinfully tight Victorian dress. Holy shit, that was eighteen years ago!
Josefin Asplund plays Mikael's daughter Pernilla. Typical teenager fare here, but she serves as an important plot device.
Goran Višnjić is Dragan Armansky. We only see him in a few scenes and the actor has very little to do other than put on an authoritative air as boss of Milton Security. A thankless role.
Élodie Yung as Lisbeth's on-off lover Miriam Wu. I've seen her in Gods of Egypt last year, The Hitman's Bodyguard this year and more recently, in the Daredevil and The Defenders series as Elektra. She actually went topless for this bit part, so it must have been one of her earlier roles.
Bengt C.W. Carlsson as Palmer Holmgren. Mostly a non-speaking (and almost non-moving) role, due to the character suffering a stroke.
The Mood
Cold and dark. Literally, because a large part of the movie takes pace in winter. Most of the scenery is really pretty, what with the snowbound landscapes and all. And the use of music and cut-scenes to ratchet up the tension when it's warranted... top-class.What I liked
The opening credits. So creepy. A melting-pot of morphy special effects. And that music.
Lisbeth stands by casually as a woman enters the 4-digit passcode to a secured apartment building, and just seconds later, produces the same passcode by sound alone. Nothing's safe from this hacker.
In some ways, the 2011 remake is more thorough with the details. They even included the cat that was mutilated!
This fight scene between Lisbeth and a would-be snatch thief on the escalator in a subway. Not so much the slick action, but here we see Lisbeth unleash her frustration, and it is terrifying.
This close-up shot of the cheque Bjurman cuts Lisbeth after raping her. Somehow it just slams the message home so much more brutally than the obligatory post-rape shower scene.
This shot of Lisbeth hacking into Wennerström's email made me laugh out loud.
"Do you doubt anything I've said? Do you doubt what's in the reports that have followed me around all my life? What do they say? If you had to sum it up, they say I'm insane. No, it's OK, you can nod because it's true. I am insane."
Holy crap, Rooney Mara delivers this in the most chilling manner ever.
This t-shirt Lisbeth is wearing during the classic scene where she and Mikael finally meet.
I really, really enjoyed the torture scene near the end. Martin Vanger even has some ridiculously upbeat music playing as he's planning to gut Mikael like a fish.
What I didn't
Generally, the entire film still boasted the same Swedish names and locations in the book - but everything was said in English. Which is pretty jarring.
The words tattooed by Lisbeth on Bjurman are in English, and the message has been truncated from the novel. I guess it's one of those little tradeoffs you have to make when you're trying to do an American remake of a Swedish original.
The sex scene between Lisbeth and Mikael felt even more abrupt and forced than it did in the film's predecessor. Nice angles, though.
The rest of the film isn't compelling enough to watch. After the entire Martin Vanger sequence, putting Lisbeth through the motions of outing Wennerström is faithful to the novel, but really very anti-climatic.
