“The girl with the dragon tattoo” – (158 minutes, USA, 2011 – rated R)
I wanted to like this. Great cast, great director, great story… But like Steven Spielberg, David Fincher hits it about as much as he misses, and the opening sequence of “the girl with the dragon tattoo” is the best part of the movie.
Steven Zaillian is credited as screenwriter for this adaptation and described on imdb as a veteran scrip doctor. Here, it appears the doctor killed the patient. You very seldom get a strong female character matched to a strong female lead as was the case with Salander and Noomi Rapace. To say this version adds nothing to the original Swedish film is true but incomplete: the character treatment of Lisbeth Salander amounts to character assassination, although at 158 minutes it’s more like a prolonged torture session.
SPOILER ALERT BELOW.
When Lisbeth rescues Blomqvist from the killer and chases after him, she actually asks Blomqvist for his permission to kill the bad guy. In Fincher’s “girl with the dragon tattoo”, Lisbeth subordinates herself to Blomqvist, which is not just contrary to the source material (book and film), but bizarre…
The book’s original title, Män som hatar kvinnor, means “men who hate women”, and makes me wonder at the guys involved here. Too bad, so sad, avoid this stinker. This gets no beans.
UPDATE BY Rudha-an
Here is the opening title sequence that Lastech mentioned. It’s the best part of the movie.
Terrible writing often leads to worse movies. A novel for the “can’t read” generation.
I enjoyed the books, and the original movies. I didn’t like the remake at all. As mystery novels, they were better than some of the others I had read. Generally, if I’m going to read fiction, I prefer hard sci-fi. I made an exception for this. 🙂
I’ve never watched the US remake… mostly because I was sooooo disappointed that the excellent Swedish original never got released theatrically here. There are times when it seems Americans are so darn determined to ignore anything “not invented here” that it makes me really angry. Grrrr….
Now as for the book… well I’ve never thought to read it, just assuming the Swedes did a good job adapting it to the screen. Is the book much different then?
Hi Nekoneko, I wish the originals had been released theatrically too, although I can’t really watch anything in the theater these days. My hearing just isn’t good enough, not to mention things like phones going off constantly while the movie plays.
The books were good. They were a bit different from the Swedish movie, but that’s to be expected. Characters get dropped or combined with other characters, etc. However, where Lisbeth and Blomqvist are concerned, the characters are spot on. In addition, the rape scene in the original was short, violent and very ugly. It was about wielding power over another human being and degrading them. The remake made it ugly, but it muddied the water a bit more by adding unnecessary dialogue and dragging the scene on long enough that it felt more like porn. ugh! The acting was fine in the remake. It was the screenwriting that really put me off.
Gee, I almost wrote my own review. Hee hee
Lastech is right. The opening title sequence is great. I went and found it on YouTube and added it to the short review.
Oooohh!! So sorry about your hearing…. I’m a wee bit deaf in my left ear so I can understand your problems… I’m always “mis-hearing’ things too. Probably the main reason I like watch most films at home rather than out at the theater.
Oh yes…. the rape scene in the original really was nasty, and gave me serious qualms at finishing this one, but in retrospect, you really needed it to “sell” the character of Lisbeth and the depths of her feelings as an outsider. Without it I don’t think the dynamic of her character’s interactions with Blomqvist would have been as strong or seemed as ‘real” either.
… but it did give me some seriously nasty nightmares after watching it….