The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2012)

As a film, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO succeeds. An an adaptation, it is frustrating. As a remake, it is pointless.
Fincher's film does many things very, very well. The characters are extremely well-cast - Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara both impressively fit the roles of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander in both attitude and physicality, much more so than their Swedish counterparts; the production design is stunning - the bigger budget pays off as the settings and atmosphere feel much colder and moodier in the snowy and eerie town of Hedestad; and the pacing, after things are rapidly established, flows smoothly with a careful balance of tension, patience, and story development. The film is a finely-crafted thriller that is carried by the performances of its two leads, both of whom showcase great chemistry with one another and admirably so in the depths of a dark, disturbing, and mysterious world.
As a remake a mere two years after the original, however, this film had to have been beyond great in order to warrant its existence, and quite frankly, it is not. Every character not only speaks English but does so each with varying accents, despite being set in Sweden, and although viewers are expected to suspend their disbelief, it's tough to do so given the inconsistencies in seeing English news channels with Swedish words, or fully Swedish newspaper articles found through an English-based Google search. How Fincher could have solved this problem is an enigma within itself, therefore confirming that this adaptation was never necessary. Add to that a horrific and awfully out-of-place opening sequence in addition to an obnoxious and unremarkable score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and you have a really good film that is oddly enough a disappointment.
For the record, like its Swedish counterpart, TATTOO fails to fully encompass the scale of Stieg Larsson's novel, which is somewhat forgivable given its various restrictions, but likewise, the brutality was not brutal enough, the characterizations were not fully realized, and the impact of it all failed to achieve both a climax that should have been more powerful and a relief for the characters and the audience that should have likened a gigantic breath of fresh air.
With that said, TATTOO is still nevertheless a very solid film from a talented and experienced team. Pic is recommended, but depending on where the viewer is coming from, it will be a widely assorted experience.