Well shot remake with a nice soundtrack. Yet...

Rating: 6/10 (29 February 2012)

OK, I might not be the most unbiased reviewer here. I met with the series not by reading the book but by stumbling onto the Swedish original movie when it came out, liking it, but being disappointed by the sequels. Moreover, I've only gotten to reading (and finishing) the book the day before and the day when I watched the movie. So the memory might be too fresh not to cause interference with the movie itself. I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of a remake to begin with. The concept is just unnecessary. Catering to "people" who are too lazy to read subtitles. So yeah, the industry does seem to actually make an effort recently. At least with high-profile stuff like this one. The cast is impressive and it's directed by Fincher. Hey! Fincher! The soundtrack is by Ross and Reznor too! I'll put it bluntly. It was dumbed-down where it shouldn't have been, diluted and rehashed in places where it wasn't necessary. Some of the characters are more simplified and hey! Why not rehabilitate the Nazi bad guy and make him just misunderstood. And then repeat Larssons's biggest gaffe, the mislead (and here I'm restraining myself from expletives) mentioning of "arms trade with the Ustae" from the 90s. For the misinformed, NO SUCH THING EXISTED IN THE WAR IN EX-YUGOSLAVIA. Except in Serbian propaganda of course. Larsson should've known better, being what he was (his usage of that term is therefore even more baffling), and, in the end, should one expect from filmmakers to review his writing? It IS, in the end, a pretty heavy insult. Yeah, it's well shot, yeah, they actually set it in Sweden, with some people actually getting the pronunciation names, surnames and places right, some neat touches like papers in Swedish, etc. The soundtrack rocks, effort has been made. And yet... it didn't win me over and I actually felt that the viewers are being patronized at times ("ooh magical hacking" for example), not something I care for. My memory might be playing tricks but the most memorable scene of the Swedish movie - Lisbeth's revenge, seemed completely dumbed-down for me. And what the hell? Did they make that sadist show something that seemed like remorse before he was tasered? Why? Why was pretty much every bad guy in the movie made more, well, human? Product placement? Sure, the book itself had plenty of that actually, intentionally or not. Not the stuff that ended up in the movie like Coke and McDonalds but hey, what was to be expected? As I said, I'm hardly unbiased, but I did watch it hoping that my suspicions and fears would turn out to be unfounded. They weren't. However, I find myself unable to judge how someone who's not familiar with the series, both in book and movie form, Sweden and some of the references would like it.