If you want to mindlessly watch pretty faces, this mystery is for you

Rating: 2/10 (1 May 2020)

This movie was the biggest disappointment. When "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" first came out, I remember hearing such rave reviews. Based on that, I decided to read the book first. Let me say, I am SO glad I did; THE MOVIE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE THE BOOK. It is as if they took the faint IDEA of the novel and made it into a movie. Yes, I understand that this is a complex storyline and it is near impossible to fold in that level of detail in however many hours, but I have never seen a movie/book combo be so far off from one another. There were points where the script was blatantly ahead of the events, clues and information were delivered by different characters, scenes were made up in an attempt to speed up the plot, there was little to no character development, entire storylines were leftout... this movie was a disorganized nightmare. Even having read the story beforehand I was confused because they changed the entire story of Harriet!!!! I have no clue what the logistics are behind translating a book into a movie, but this one for me fell extremely flat. Everything clever and cunning about the book was outright missing from the movie. I have yet to watch the Swedish version, but my current theory is that the US simply threw this together (with no thought whatsoever) in response to the original adaptation over the following year. I would honestly be offended by this film if I were the author. I would have never even let this movie fly had I written this book. This book needed to be broken up into multiple films, and the way it was put together hardly allows for this. I would call for a complete remake. Yes, from the surface the acting is fine, but if you knew how the real characters were you would realize how far off some of their responses and reactions were. I guess my biggest issue is with the script and possibly the directing. The prioritization of information seemed very off to me, and I do not agree with what aspects of the book that were being highlighted. No development whatsoever. All complexity lost. I cannot emphasize this enough. The only redeeming factors I can seem to pick out are the picture quality/lighting. Casting was off for me, but I guess I could give the costuming a pass here. I plan to watch the Swedish version next. A one sentence wrap up? Read the book.