Good adult entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2012)

I had not read any of the books or seen any of the Swedish movies, so I knew relatively little about this. The first hour sees us alternating between two unrelated stories. In one, journalist Mikael Blomquist (Daniel Craig), having been disgraced in court over a libellous story, finds himself engaged to investigate, under the guise of writing a family history, the disappearance many years ago of the then-teenage granddaughter of industrialist Hennk Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Vanger's family turns out to be massively dysfunctional - they live in houses within walking distance of each other, but haven't spoken in years. The other story concerns Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), the dragon tattoo girl of the title (not to mention various other tattoos, piercings, odd haircut, and various other signposts which shout "Attitude!" Lisbeth is a ward of the state, answerable to a nasty piece of work who demands sexual favours in return for letting her have access to her own money. After an hour, Blomquist finds himself on the trail of a serial killer and engages Salander as a research assistant.
The story is dense and involving, the characters are all strong, Lisbeth Salander is one of the most fascinating fictional characters I have encountered for years, and a number of things happen which I didn't expect. There was a lot here which I really enjoyed - the resolution of Lisbeth's rape, the final follow up to Blomquist's libel defeat, Rooney Mara's performance, the way the story was told.
I couldn't always understand the dialogue (there is a mixture of native Swedish speakers and English speakers, some of whom affect a Swedish accent, some of whom don't). I would have liked to see a more saturated colour palette at times But overall, this unexpectedly long movie (nearly two and a half hours) is an entertaining experience throughout, and I recommend it.