Good remake of a great movie

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 2014)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (American) Let me start by saying this is a review of the American version after having read the book & seen the Swedish version. The storyline in the movies remains the same essentially with differences in casting, sets & closeness to the book. Some are small such as differences in closeness to the book some are larger as in sets & casting.
The American version was correct to use Swedish settings but where they lag is in the cleanliness of the sets. This is a personal preference but I prefer the more natural gritty look & feel on the Swedish version. A notable point in the American version's favor is that it is slightly closer to the story as told in the book. The American wins by a nose here, a good example is at the end where the antagonist is dealt with. Neither the Swedish or English gets it correct & it changes your final view of both characters involved but the American is closer to the book here.
The real difference is in casting, the Swedish version has it correct in both the case of Mikael Blomkvist & Erika Berger. They look older, like people that have had a long term relationship based on a slightly hedonistic sexual lifestyle. There's a little meat on them from their long years of late night work & odd hour meals plus their casual use of alcohol over the years. It fits the printed news industry. Mikael & Erika's relationship is not based on looks. It is based on their appetite & the fact that Mikael likes strong women that don't wait for a man to initiate sex. If his sexual relations had been based on looks the Lisbeth would never have had a chance with him. The American one is Hollywood American casting. They have a gym rat body as Mikael & a thin Erika which certainly doesn't fit her notable lifestyle. It seems that Hollywood would have us believe that only thin people have good sex & that doesn't fit reality at all. It's a common problem in movies from Tinsel Town. They polish the sets & polish the bodies if at all possible.
The part that Rooney Mara took on was a courageous move on her part & she does well with it but that role was owned by Noomi Rapace as well as any role in cinema has ever been owned before. Still, the acting in the American version is very good so I'm really complaining of American tendencies in casting as versus the job done by casting in Sweden.
I know that a lot of Americans dislike hearing a foreign language for an entire movie not to mention having to read subtitles & that would qualify as a personal preference. I believe those people are missing some of the world's best cinema & would urge them to view the Swedish version as I believe it is a better experience visually. It is certainly a more dynamic performance by Noomi as Lisbeth Salander.
I gave the American version 8 stars as opposed to 10 stars for the Swedish version for the above reasons. The American is surely worth seeing & is surprising, enjoyable & a wonderful mystery / social commentary on Sweden. The book is the best of the lot as it has the pages that detail the statistics on sexual assaults on women. The story after all is about Swedish societal & government lack of care about abuse of women in Sweden & not just Lisbeth Salander's life.
The book title was more appropriate being MEN WHO HATE WOMEN, not as dramatic as TGWTDT perhaps, but the movie titles sort of muddle the storyline since they focus our attention on this one woman. I can see where people that only watch American language movies are, in my opinion, better off to watch the American one than skip it & would even say that those who watched the Swedish version only, should see Fincher's remake. I am firmly of the opinion that the Swedish is the best though.