Fincher adds a liberal dash of dull to a great story.

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2012)

You may or may not be familiar with the original Girl movies from Sweden or Norway or wherever they don't speak the Lord's fine language, but they do exist. Made for TV, but containing unfiltered images of the sex, violence, and perversion from the thriller, the original trilogy was a great tribute to a now passed author. WHat's that Hollywood? You know what's good for us? This isn't a review of the originals, but they do bear mentioning since the Fincher feature is intended (and being hailed) as a superior version.
Mikael Blomkvist is a simple investigative reporter – he wants the biggest names in corporate corruption to fall. When he gets raked through the courts for a huge financial loss, he slips out of the public view taking a job solving a long standing murder for a strange wealthy family living on an island in north wherever. He soon figures out there's more to the single incident and employs the services Hot Topic poster girl Lisbeth Salander as his chief researcher. She's unhinged, but has the uncanny ability to hack EVERYTHING using the Mac OS – a feat worthy of praise, for sure. Mystery unfolds, solves, and it only took 2 hours and 40 minutes.
In typical Fincher fashion, everything was grass-growing slow. It's a thriller, but even the climax contained long, riveting scenes of Lisbeth flipping through old records, getting coffee, walking, walking, walking, riding elevators there's pacing and then there's self-indulgence. Thankfully Queer had graciously tossed me a free large soda coupon, so I filled my time by drinking, eliminating, and refilling several times. Choosing the flavoring for my soda = most exciting part of my evening.
Daniel Craig really could have been anybody. It's not really his fault, Mikael isn't a very complex character. He's thoughtful, passive, and likes his little trysts (don't we all?), but never really has any intentions other than the ever-noble seeking the truth. Rooney Mara got the real gem – Lisbeth Salander with her stormy past, violent nature, and unfettered lust. Through the talented (and, funny, English- speaking) Noomi Rapace, the character has some maturity and more control in the crazed moments. Rooney Mara never broke from a sullen, pouty demeanor until the absurd final minutes of the film where she suddenly goes all Tin Man and finds a heart telling a brain-dead old man "I made a friend!" Rapace was a terrifyingly unhinged woman, Mara was a pouting teenager.
It's more than just the dull pacing and flat characters that made this movie boring as dirt, it was the entire experience. The Trent Reznor score sounded like someone leaning on a keyboard, the locations had zero deviation from the original, the accents fluttered somewhere between Swedish and British, and product placement overran the screen at all times. Far from the gritty source material, the film spewed out the watered-down, pretentious Hollywood version of edgy.
The one positive – first film I've seen shot on RedOne that had a beautiful cinema look to it. Too bad everything else couldn't match the picture quality.
Critics may fawn over Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and probably the subsequent two films, but I think I'll be taking the Twilight route and skipping the rest of the series having had the taste of the first.