Cigarette commercial. Too long, unoriginal, but not bad.

Rating: 5/10 (8 January 2012)

Though you might have read synopses, I'll give it in brief: the movie, like the book, is set in Sweden where a disgraced reporter, Mikael Blomvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by a wealthy family to investigate an unsolved murder in their history, and is then teamed with the investigator who shamed him, an eccentric, antisocial young woman Lisabeth Salander (Rooney Mara) .
I have to hand it to director David Fincher. Though not overly suspenseful, the movie also isn't boring, and the plot is never confusing, though it's complex with a lot of characters. This is no small accomplishment for Fincher because it's also bloated with many unnecessary scenes. It could have lost close to an hour's worth without losing anything on plot or characters.
The story starts with a parallel structure, Mikael's being one, Lisabeth being the other, then they converge. At least four scenes at the beginning seem to serve only as back story for a rape, which means that scene can accurately be called gratuitous, and not from being graphic, which it is. They could have easily dropped it and instead started with the next encounter between those characters, which told you everything you needed to know about Lisabeth and what previously transpired. Mikael's side of the plot similarly belonged in the back story that should have been started later.
Then at the end, the movie continues for another twenty minutes after the story is over. The whole point of this seemed to be to set it up for the sequels, but it was so rushed. They could have made a whole sequel based on those scenes alone. Abbreviated like that, it's pretty unsatisfying, especially to an audience waiting to leave.
Despite the title, Mikael is in so many of the opening scenes where the story takes shape it's easy to think he's the protagonist, whereas Lisabeth is. The title should have tipped me off, but I knew nothing about the story coming in, and didn't know if The Girl would be the murder victim, MacGuffin, the protagonist, the antagonist, or part of the set decoration.
A lot of the other things in the movie were very standard. I not only called the final plot twist twenty minutes into it, but I called it as the least satisfying conclusion that wasn't downright dumb.
Also, and this is not a spoiler as much as a general observation that every movie-goer knows: when a family has Nazis in it, it does narrow down the list of suspects considerably. I was hoping this part of the film would be a tease, or background. I know Nazis were 20 million lives worth of evil, but the Hitler mustache has also been out of style for close to seventy years. Surely there are more modern brands of evil writers can think of. Like even Neo-Nazis? Though that does require a movie to be original, relevant, topical and clever, things Hollywood definitely won't go near.
Making Lisabeth a neo-punk with her tattoo doesn't ring true for a Asperger's savant and social outcast to me. Not in an age where seventy percent of people under thirty have tattoos and piercings, but it's Hollywood's perception of what an outcast looks like. A much more accurate, if comical, portrayal of an outcast was, ironically, in Fincher's earlier movie, "Fight Club": Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer.
The whole cast is good. The only one that looked questionable is the rapist, but that's because he's stereotype only in retrospect. Rooney Mara has received a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal. Problem is, for most the movie, she isn't supposed to show any emotion. I'd have to watch a few scenes again, but I'll say I'm not sure it was that good unless GG were grading on a curve. She did well at the parts she was required to show range, but, for me, she also didn't steal any scenes.
Hollywood, and apparently the book's author, have a very exaggerated picture of what hackers can do. At one point Lisabeth sneers at Mikael's encryption like it was no problem to crack. And I thought, as the Lisabeth said, "Oh, plu-ease!" The reality: even with inexpensive encryption programs, it's not possible cracking it was easy unless he had a weak pass-phrase. Otherwise, does she carry a pocket quantum computer?
Finally, just how much money did the tobacco industry plow into this movie? I know it sounds like an unfair criticism or pet peeve, but it isn't. It effects the way the film is handled. An opening scene goes out of its way to show a character buying cigarettes and asking for a brand name (not a fictional one, as movies usually do). I wouldn't object, except the scene had no other point. From then on, characters, especially the protagonists smoked in about 75% of the scenes, and Fincher starts at least two scenes, not with dialog, but with a character lighting up. At the end, Mikael says he has quit (just like that, because anybody can quit smoking just like that at any time). I know realistically, people smoke, but this was something other than adding realism, and it was very distracting. It's a fair question to ask whether sponsorship and product placement weakens this film, tobacco being a bit more insidious than most.
Fincher did much the same thing in "Fight Club." But if it were paid for there, and it likely was, it did fit. The characters were hardly heroic, and it added just enough realism without making me too suspicious that the movie was made as a cigarette commercial.
This all being said, I did enjoy the movie enough, though I'm not going to recall it frequently my whole life. It's competent, but nothing great or original. It's standard, and not stupid. However, it is far too long, and you should bring your nicotine patch.