dark and absorbing

Rating: 8/10 (16 June 2012)

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this movie at the beginning. The film was gray and had a murky quality, and the first characters I saw were too understated and a little mumbly. I was also a little unclear as to what was happening at first.
As the movie progressed, it became a little more interesting. It became darker. Then it introduced a mystery, which made somewhat centered it. Then it got much darker still.
As the movie moved along, I was increasingly drawn in. Many of the things that had initially put me off - Daniel Craig's understated performance, the deliberate pacing, the oppressive, almost monochromatic style - started to fit together nicely.
The movie winds up working for a number of different reasons. The dragon-tattoo girl is an intriguing character who has most of the best scenes in the movie. The mystery is well done (although it follows a not-unusual mystery-book path) and the movie does a nice job of making slogging through old documents interesting, mainly by focusing on photographic evidence. The movie extends in both directions past the mystery itself, which makes the characters more than just detectives.
While it probably took me a half hour before I was sure I was going to stick with the movie, by the end I was ready for the sequel.