Excellent Murder Mystery

Rating: Null/10 (3 May 2014)

The movie titled Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about a journalist named Mikel Blomkvist (actor Daniel Craig) that is being sued by a powerful man named Hans-Erik Wennerström (actor Ulf Friberg) for slander. During this time, Mikel is being investigated by Vanger Corporation with the aide of Lisabeth Salander (actress Rooney Mara) who happens to be appropriately named because of her illegal talent of hacking computers to gain personal information during an investigation. Because of his legal troubles, Mikel is contacted by the lawyer of Vanger with a proposal that we will find is hard to refuse. Henrik Vanger (actor Christopher Plummer) invites Mikel into his home and asks him to investigate his family history in order to discover what happen to his niece and to help write his memoirs. Over 40 years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from the island of Hedested and the family believes she was murdered even though the body was never found. The theme of this movie revolves around murder and mystery and it seems this trademark is related to one section of this family.
Daniel Craig done an excellent job with his portrayal of Mikel and you almost have sympathy for him while he is going through his troubles and relationships. Rooney Mara played her role as Lisabeth as well as could have been played. She went from a Gothic chick to almost a sex symbol during the movie while remaining her hard edge. The rest of the cast and crew did excellent jobs as well. One thing that impressed me the most about this film is the editing and the scene transitions. During most of the film you had two scenes going at the same time switching back and forth.
This film reminds me of another murder mystery that involves the killing of women and girls and that film is titled Kiss the Girls which is about a film about a man named Dr. Alex Cross (actor Morgan Freeman), who goes to North Carolina to help find his missing niece. When Alex arrives in North Carolina, the police informed him they believe his niece is part of a serial killing being done by a person calling himself Cassanova after the great lover. The main similarities are the killing of the girls, the investigating to discover the killer, and how the killer is eventually discovered.
The director, David Fincher, kept the film moving at a fast pace which forced me to keep my eyes glued to the screen because I didn't want to miss any key elements of the film. He also kept the lighting of the film mostly dark which added to the mystery and wonder of the film. During the beginning of the film, each scene that Lisabeth was involved in was dark with a lot of shadows and how ironic is it that her first scene where she's in that light is when she discovered her guardian is passed out on the floor of his apartment. The irony is that during her darkest moment it's most lit scene until that point of the film. I would also say this film involved two main characters which are Mikel and Lisabeth which is normally a hard thing to do in film. I believe another ironic area of this film is how everyone in the Vanger family seems to know how the other family members would react to Mikel even though most of them don't talk to each. Yet, when Mikel approaches them each family seems to be willing to help.
This film is definitely a murder mystery with a twist. Who would have thought that Martin was following in his father's footsteps. Also, the fact that Harriet is the one responsible her father demise, but Henrik said he drowned in the lake because he was drunk. It's great what Mikel discovers about Anita. These are just a few of the twist and turns involved in this film. I was a little disappointed in how the film ended for Lisabeth but life isn't fair.