Gone...Baby....Gone

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2014)

Before reading further, know these: 1. I've read the book. Loved it. Made me read all of Flynn's other works. Loved them too. Dark. Subversive. Captivating. Deffo up Fincher's alley for adapting. 2. The supposedly nice cinema I watched this in had geniuses who were always on their mobile phone (including a genius who I accompanied - just my luck), and 3. The sound output was pathetic, along with the noise that was being made perennially by a projector. 4. The omnipresent censor board seemed to be taking it's role quite seriously in this flick, manipulating frame size and position to obscure nudity, sex and violence from all of us innocent moviegoers. Not sure it was something the makers did. Also, towards the end, quite a few lines spoken by one of the lead characters was muted out, and I did not catch anything, in spite of having read the book.
Sigh.
But the fact that I'd already read the book going in turned out to be surprisingly unfortunate (in spite of this being from the mind of David Fincher, which is weird, since I'd read all the 'Dragon tattoo' books and watched the fantastic Swedish film original 'Män som hatar kvinnor' as well, and his adaptation with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, though totally unnecessary, was right on-the-nose) since this turned out to be a totally uninvolving affair for those who've read the book. At least in my mind, the movie I imagined (IMO) was better than what unfolded. Well.
Specifics then:
There are far too many blink-kinda transitions from one scene/set- piece to the next, and I do not know why Fincher followed that theme over here. Almost found it distracting every time, though I've not had that complaint for this kinda transition in other works (though nothing comes to mind immediately, other than M:I 3, for which it seemed contextual, ergo, perfect). No style should call attention to itself, IMHO.
The performances are perfect, including that of Tyler Perry as Tanner Bolt, though they've strangely changed his ethnicity to accommodate Perry. I'd call it racist/reverse-racist, but I'm glad Perry gets to sharpen his acting chops once in a while in roles like this. For my money, better'n Madea-ing around, though that pays better for him.
I was also not very impressed by the background score by Fincher regulars, Reznor and Ross, and their attempts to be subtle (not very, since there's always a droning going on in the background, that I feel the score could've done without - and this was not the damn projector fo sho, since I remember 2 separate 'drone' tracks throughout: to be fair, I might not have resented the one in the soundtrack if the other one were absent, but I'll never know, since I do not intend to revisit this one at all).
All the other technical aspects, including set and production design, the cinematography, editing (except in few places, perhaps) had people working at the top of their game, meeting Fincher's exacting (but perhaps lowered, in this instance) standards.
Last, and perhaps not all that important in the context of all my other points, I was expecting a better title sequence than was seemed (almost) lazily concocted/choreographed here (the one he gave us in 'Se7en' was perhaps the best in his filmography, closely followed by the one he conceived and executed for the 'Dragon Tattoo 1' remake), but I'm sure I wouldn't be dissing an entire movie for a routine kinda title sequence, so there.
All in all, a must-watch at the cinema for those who've not read the books. For the rest of us though, a TV viewing with other options on the remote is not a bad idea at all.