Great Hollywood re-make

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2018)

Foreign language films are often remade by Hollywood to enable them to be seen by a much wider audience and to cash in on their proven success. Often this involves moving the story to America and the casting of big box office stars but seemingly more often than not results in a poorer film for many reasons, often despite a much bigger budget. For me two notable exceptions to this in recent years have been the vampire masterpiece Let Me In and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Both originally Swedish films, their remakes were still set in Sweden and pretty much copied the original films without them having the need to massively rewrite or change what were already great films. Having also read the book to this particular film I can also state that it does the original story justice and isn't one of those many occasions where the book is so obviously much better than the film.
Although I still marginally prefer the original, which offers a little more detail thereby helping the viewer understand the complex plot, this film is slick, stylish and intelligent and Daniel Craig along with some of the over actors give superb performances in what remains a suburb and compelling thriller very much true to its Swedish roots.