Mauled hot garbage.

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2012)

Huge spoiler alerts by the way so tread cautiously. I also had to re-write this because I'm only allowed a max of 1000 words. If you didn't read the books, you won't understand what's going on and why and if you did read the books this movie will only annoy the living hell out of you. The Lisbeth Salander character was stripped down so badly that I didn't recognize what Fincher or anyone was going for. Her physical demeanor was just plain wrong to the point of skittish. The most offensive part is they didn't build her up to be a girl/woman who's been through way more than most, and is obviously a fighter, and then attacked by her second guardian, they just said, here's a weird looking chick and while we're at it here's a rape scene that we could of just left with the idea when the door closed because everyone knew that was going to happen, no we'll just show the whole thing. The first 10 minutes of the movie was just a huge "What the hell is this?!". The
The Mikael Blomkvist character was bland, charmless and just seemed like a guy being led around by his nose the entire time. Not one ounce of drive came out of him that should have been there. He was a pointless lump. Also, somehow they attempted to cram the first two books into one movie. Huge mistake they left so much plot out doing it, the movie just looked like a series of 5 to 10 minute unattached movie scenes. Martin Vanger didn't have an accident, he killed himself. Mikael never went into Martins house he was brought into it buy gun point. Lisbeth never told anyone she was insane, never told Mikael herself that she had a guardian or burned her father. Harriet was never under everyone's nose during the entire book. Mikael actually had a weird relationship with one of the Vanger women, instead that plot point just went to hell.
This movie is so far off the reservation from the books and characters that I just sat there realizing that if I hadn't read the books I would have no clue what was going on. Because I read the books I was so unabashedly horrified by what was done to the books I couldn't believe it. If Fincher and the writers were going for an art film to put out for new adults with no attention spans, mission accomplished. If they actually meant for anyone that read the books to care about the characters, they must have been off somewhere patting themselves on the back having a sandwich. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone even if the movie was a "loose take" of the books, if it was just a good movie in and of itself, but it wasn't. As a movie alone and as a movie based on the books, it's terrible. No character development, the plot was lost in clips. I'm just going to tell people to read the books and don't bother wasting your time on the movie until it's free on cable because at least you can turn it off and not feel cheated.