The Year's Best Remake of a Recent Swedish Film

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2011)

The Hollywood version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo offers few surprises for the seasoned viewer of the 2009 Swedish original. Yes, it has come to the point that we can't wait long enough to rip-off foreign markets. To its credit director David Fincher manages to inject the compelling mystery with his auteur pizazz, though the Bond-esque ink laden title sequence may have been overkill.
Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is a magazine editor on the verge of financial collapse after losing a libel trial. When an assignment appears before him to investigate a murder from 50 years ago, with an enticing offer of the dirt needed to clear his name, he takes it. With the help of an eccentric investigator by the name of Lisbeth (Rooney Mara), Mikael finds himself investigating not one murder but a series.
At some point studios are going to figure out that Daniel Craig is not the answer to their casting problems. Here, he's too cool under pressure. I'm no magazine editor, but I don't figure that they handle being kidnapped like James Bond would. He hardly seems bothered.
Rooney Mara mutilates her hair and body for this role, receiving more piercing than I'd care to describe. Her accent is highly authentic, more so than Craig's to say the least. I'm not a fan of how she has decided to sell out her body for realism, but Mara does have the most genuine performance of the film.
Because of her unorthodox appearance, it can be troublesome for an audience to root for Lisbeth. To accomplish this she's put into a compromising situation involving rape, to which end we can take joy in her revenge. It's an effective tactic, but I question the nature in which she is exploited, making for a largely anti-male narrative. Not only that but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) makes the same lazy circle as the 2009 film. Random acts of violence happen in the real world, but in a movie the unlikely is frowned upon. When a thief damages Lisbeth's Macbook Pro, she has to see he newly appointed guardian, a sex maniac, and trade services for an allowance to have her computer replaced. So ultimately she ends up back where she started, she had a laptop, and now she has a laptop. This choice makes a nearly 3- hour movie. In fact an entire film goes by before Lisbeth and Mikael meet.
The discrepancies between this and the 2009 Swedish films are few until the mystery is solved. As the movie struggles to conclude we find a flashback that has been nixed, replaced by a brief aural tale. Fincher then moves to resolve everything presented in the first half, so Lisbeth becomes a busy girl following up with friends and doing favors.
I wasn't crazy about the 2009 film, but I certainly respect it. I can't find myself respecting a blatant cash-in regardless of its individual merits.