Put up with the subtitles

Rating: 7/10 (23 February 2016)

A very disappointing attempt at this story, ideal for a movie. The problem lies in the casting of both the main characters. The books make it quite clear that Mikael is a middle-aged fairly unfit financial journalist - and as such Daniel Craig is completely miscast. He is far too worldly wise and 'dangerous' to fit the picture painted of Mikael in the books. Fine actor, does a great job of playing the part but too macho. 'Lisbeth' is described as being very petite, indeed she is often mistaken for a young boy, and as such Rooney Mara is also a poor fit for the character - particularly if you have seen the Swedish version in which Noomi Rapace is excellent in the part. Again I accept that Rooney played the part well but she looked wrong, she was too tall and didn't fit the image. You could argue that reading the books prior to seeing this film (and seeing all three Swedish films) was a mistake - and that your image of a character may be wrong - but in this case the late Stieg Larsson (who wrote the books) was very clear in his description of the main characters. I note that no attempt has been made to film the other two books - hopefully that will continue. The original Swedish films are excellent, marred by the subtitles of course, and I think that this is the way to enjoy this series of books. The English language version could have been so much better than it turned out.