Not completely worthless, but disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (26 January 2012)

A Hollywood remake of a Swedish movie made just two years ago, is the first part of the best selling trilogy Millennium, by the late Swedish author (and journalist) Stieg Larsson. The plot is mostly about how investigative journalist Michael Blomkvist (clearly an alter ego of Larsson) is asked by Henrik Vanger, an aging captain of industry to solve the murder of his favorite niece forty years ago. By some strange circumstances, he will be helped in the investigation by the pierced, troubled hacker Lisbeth Salander, with whom professional cooperation will soon turn into the personal as they discover the very dark secrets running under the very successful Vanger family. The Hollywood version is also set in Sweden, though here all the characters speak in English.
As much as I like the original movie (I haven't read the books) I must admit that its view of the world is a bit naive, equivalent to an earnest teenager shouting that the whole world is corrupt. In the US version, Blomkvist is played by Daniel Craig (a fine actor who has made a career playing macho guys) as a stronger and more attractive man than in the Swedish movie (where he was played by the older and somewhat chubby Michael Nyqvist). On the other hand, the Lisbeth Salander character is played in the remake by Rooney Mara as a weaker woman than in the original (she might be a fine actress, but she doesn't show it here, despite critical acclaim for her performance). Noomi Rapace made a far stronger impression as Lisbeth in the Swedish movie.
Though there are not major changes in the movie plot, the Hollywood version does make small variations, which I think are generally for the worse. For instance, when Craig tries to understand the meaning of certain numbers that might be a clue to the murder, his daughter, who is a fervent catholic going to a religious camp, alerts him that they are a biblical reference. This scene is unlikely, since there are very few Catholics in Sweden, or very religious people for that matter, as it is a very secular country. In the original version, the character of the daughter does not appear, and is Lisbeth, by surfing in the net, that finds the religious connections.
The director is David Fincher. He has occasionally made fine movies (for instance, Zodiac) but most of the time his work tend to the flashy and empty (Seven, Fight Club), the overrated (The Social Network) if not to the directly mediocre (Benjamin Button). This movie is not totally worthless, but it is disappointing, and it is considerably weaker than the original version.