Much better than expected

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2011)

Having read both the books and watched the Swedish version of the film, I did not have high hopes for the remade American version. I was concerned about how a big-budget, Hollywood style movie might take away from the rawness of the story. Turns out I had nothing to worry about.
This American version is actually much more true to the book than is the Swedish version. The only major change from the book was that Blomkvist did not have sex with every single female character that showed up in the story (thankfully, the Swedish version left this out, too, because it was just ridiculous). Besides this, it incorporated many aspects of the book that were left out in the Swedish film. The result is a very long film, which may start to drag on for people who have never read the books, but which is certainly enough to satisfy fans. Despite being a somewhat flashier, higher-budget version, this version of the movie does a good job of incorporating a lot of the rawness of the story. There are plenty of horrifying, cringe-worthy scenes that are not censored anymore than the Swedish version (in fact, it almost seems as though Fincher was trying to be even more shocking).
The acting and casting was superb. Daniel Craig is a perfect choice for Blomkvist; despite his previous macho hero roles, he does a great job in bringing out the vulnerability of his character. He is a relatively mild-mannered man who finds himself caught up in some dangerous situations. Although I don't feel like anyone can ever do any better than Noomi Rapace as Salander in the original movies, Rooney Mara certainly came very close with a much different style. Mara brings out a little more of the emotionality of Salander but still well mixed with the blank mask of a traumatized girl. The chemistry between Blomkvist and Salander is very well done in this movie - there is a certain warmth between Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara that was lacking in the Swedish version. Other notable performances include Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger (who borders on amusing when he talks about his family squabbles), Stellan Skarsgard as Martin Vanger, and Steven Berkoff as Frode.
I did have a few minor issues with the movie. The accents were pretty poorly done. It felt as though the directors and the actors couldn't decide whether they wanted the characters to have accents or not. Some characters had part-time accents and others seemed to have no accent at all (Daniel Craig, in particular). I wouldn't really mind if none of the actors had Swedish accents since this is an English-language film but there is definitely a need to be consistent. Unlike other reviewers, I was not at all a fan of the soundtrack. Most of it hardly sounded like music to me - sort of just techno sounds half the time. The worst was the opening credits with really bizarre Gothic art and a song that just seemed very at odds with the rest of the movie.