Only intermittently thrilling

Rating: 7/10 (5 January 2012)

I approached this without preconceptions, having neither read the books nor seen the Swedish movie version. This big-budget version has an appropriately Scandinavian feel to it: bleak, wintry and dark. Some of the characters attempt a vaguely Nordic accent; others (including Daniel Craig) wisely do not.
The movie gets off to a slow start and goes on far too long. The pace only picks up when Mikael realises he's pursuing a serial killer and recruits Lisbeth to help with his research. The unmasking of the killer is not an enormous surprise, and the killer's 'back story' is out there in the twilight zone with the early life of Hannibal Lecter.
Craig is much better cast in this kind of movie than as Pierce Brosnan's substitute. Rooney Mara will be an actress to look out for, although I thought the SM scenes with her lard-ass 'guardian' were superfluous to the central plot and a bit too unpleasant to watch. An interesting movie, but often tedious and only intermittently thrilling.