It Makes Us Looking Forward to The Girl Who Set Fire on the Hornet's Nest

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2012)

It takes a great challenge for a movie director to do a remake of a popular movie, especially when it is based on best selling novel. David Fincher has taken the challenge to do a remake of the highly popular Millennium Trilogy, and he did it. He has delivered a splendid American remake of the Swedish drama series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Daniel Craig takes up the role of Mikael Blomkervist, and Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth Salander. Together, the trio have given us the feel bad movie of Christmas.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo marks the first chapter of Millennium Trilogy, with Mikael the journalist and Lisbeth, a computer hacker, working together to investigate the case of a missing girl, Harriet Vanger. Harriet was believed to be murdered by one of her family member when she goes missing 40 years ago. At the same time, Mikael is under trial for defamation of a entrepreneur, while Lisbeth is surviving from a rape which could have unlikely to happened on her.
While Fincher gives a fully explained details in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2009), which was based on a short story written by F.Scott Fitzgerald, it takes a challenge to summarize a 644 pages story written by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson into a 2hr 38 min movie. Fincher not only did it, but also makes the US remake truly lives up to the novel. Audience get a better understanding on Lisbeth's lifestyle and attitude towards her surrounding, such as being reserved at work, living as a bisexual computer hacker, survives from rape and develops affection on her working partner Mikael. To understand how Mikael turns Millennium magazine into a magazine that exposes corporate scandals, it can be seen from the way how he investigates the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. This is how we see Fincher wants to tell the audience on the working style for Mikael without repeating Mikael's working style, which was featured at the beginning of the novel.
Editing plays a very important role in this US remake. In the first half of the movie, Mikael and Lisbeth were presented as two different persons with very different lifestyle, which goes concurrently without overlapping each other. Towards the next half of the film, both met each other by working in the investigation on the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, which eventually leads to the discovery of the sinister secrets of the Vanger family. The pace is fast, direct without making one feeling bored. Rather, it engages the audience, making them wanting to know more. This is another reason why the movie is a success. What it lacks, however, is a deeper exploration on Lisbeth's personality. While it was explained in the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it was not seen in the US remake.
In some way, the US remake makes up what was lacking in the Swedish version. The opening credits are created specially for the US remake, compared to the usual credits run over on movie scenes. This gives audience the reason they should arrive the theaters early to catch them. Observant audience will know that the opening credits covers the title of the trilogy: a dragon tattoo on the black female body (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), a burning matchstick and a burning body (The Girl Who Played With Fire) and hornets flying out of a girl's mouth (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest). The credits are marvelously accompanied by Karen O, Trent Renzor and Atticus Ross modern reprise of Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song.
With a marvelous US remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it gives us the reason to look forward to the US remake of The Girl Who Played With Fire. Now, all we want is to revisit Mikael and Lisbeth, the unlikely pair, to unveil more dark secrets.