The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

Rating: 8/10 (18 May 2013)

In a nutshell, I feel that this film was the one that stuck closely to the novel compared to the Swedish version and Rooney Mara managed to convey the character of Lisbeth Salander accurately to what I'd imagined in the novel.
The film introduces the audience to Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig), a journalist, who's convicted of libel against Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. Blomkvist ends up receiving a call that he's needed in Hedestad to solve the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, who's the niece of a CEO of a family corporation named Henrik Vanger (played by Christopher Plummer). Lisbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara) is an exceptional hacker who works for a security firm and she's the one that provides all the information regarding Blomkvist to Vanger. Later on in the film, Blomkvist ends up finding out about Salander and the profile she did about him and brings her into the investigation to help him solve the mystery.
Although this film isn't without its flaws, I consider it miles ahead of the Swedish version. This version managed to stick as close to the novel as it could and it had a talented actress who helped bring one of my favorite female characters to life on the big screen. In the Swedish version, I felt that Noomi Rapace was wrong for the part of Lisbeth Salander, because she was a little old for the part and she wasn't skinny enough. In the novel, she's described as anorexic looking and I feel that Rooney Mara fit the part in both the emotional and physical aspects. Mara's Salander gives off the impression that she can be easily overtaken, but looks can be deceiving in the sense that she can take down whoever crosses her path. With Rapace's Salander, she wasn't portrayed as a well-rounded character. I felt that her portrayal was very one-sided. Mara's interpretation of the character felt realistic to the events that happened within the film. One of my favorite scenes is when Bjurman, her guardian, enters an elevator in the apartment complex that he lives in and thinking that it's some random individual in the elevator with him, Salander catches him by surprise.
Some of the negative things about the film are Daniel Craig's performance and a few questionable scenes that could have been written differently. Craig's acting wasn't bad, but I felt that he could have made an effort to put on a Swedish accent. As far as the questionable scenes, I felt that the scene where Blomkvist tries to escape from Martin Vanger's house and he ends up getting caught by Vanger and even though Vanger didn't have a gun on him, Blomkvist doesn't run, but accepts Vanger's invitation back into the house. I felt that they should have stuck to how the scene was written in the book.Without spoiling too much about the film, I also think they should have written the part regarding about what happened to Harriet Vanger more how the book laid it out.
Aside from the negative things about the film, I would highly recommend this film for people who've read the novel and who haven't read the novel, because the positive aspects of this film drown out the negative aspects. It evokes an interesting atmosphere (akin to some of Tim Burton's films) and it has an amazing music score.
Grade: B