Competently made but rather average thriller

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2010)

I went to see this based on the trailer, which gave me a totally wrong impression of it, as does the American distribution title. The "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is really a rather subsidiary character and frankly not very interesting. What this is really about is an uninspired murder mystery, and the real protagonist is yet another investigative journalist, and not one with a whole lot of personality. The actress who plays the titular "girl" makes a pretty sincere effort to turn an unbelievable fantasy into a real person, but I've seen all the relevant clichés rehashed too many times to have much interest in seeing them again. The "magic hacker" trope is relied upon heavily but is never executed very credibly. Once again, we're expected to believe that any kind of data can be downloaded from anywhere as long as you wear something cool enough while you're tapping randomly on the keyboard. It's not a bad movie, but it's nothing special and will mainly appeal to people who have already bought into the whole murder-mystery pot-boiler genre.