The adaptation the book deserved all along

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2012)

Let me start by saying David Fincher is one of the best directors in Hollywood today and his films are truly unique and artful. In this brilliant movie, his technique for cinematography and quality is top notch and apparent from several of his other movies dating back to 1995 (Se7en).
Rooney Mara really is the real Lisbeth Salander from the books. Although Noomi's version was just as good - she didn't physically resemble the Lisbeth from the books. Mara's Lisbeth is hard, socially inadequate, vulnerable and child-like. In the books she is constantly portrayed as looking like a child or a teenage boy, and her physique and interpretation are spot on.
Daniel Craig's Blomkvist is also a lot like in the books - slightly unemotional and dedicated in his left wing beliefs as a journalist in the Millennium magazine.
As for the comparisons between the Swedish film version and the book itself - I thought there were both good and bad things. First I'll start with the bad things - the debate between Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist concerning whether Martin Vanger should be understood for his actions because of his terrible dysfunctional relationship with his father is omitted (in the Swedish film and the book, this is an important understanding of the difference between the two characters) - Lisbeth's line to Mikael after she saves him from Martin, asking permission to kill him (Lisbeth doesn't ask permission) - the absence of the scenes between Lisbeth and her mother - Lisbeth telling Mikael about burning her father alive (we don't find that out until the second installment of the series, least of all from Lisbeth's own mouth) and finally the circumstances involving the encounter of Miriam Wu by Lisbeth.
Now the good things involve mostly around the fact that - apart from a few of the bad things I mentioned earlier, it's very faithful to the novel. The actors are perfect in their portrayals and the writing is terrific. There's a twist in the circumstances of the missing girl, which for me was refreshing since, after reading the book so many times, the events in the film were quite predictable. I'm also glad they changed the event of Lisbeth breaking her computer, instead of having the crap beaten out of her by random thugs for being female, like in the Swedish version (which didn't make any sense - plus there was enough violence done to her by Bjurman), she bashes a robber after he took her computer.
Overall absolutely terrific movie that deserves a few Oscar nominations, especially for Best Picture and Best Actress. There are some extremely horrific rape and revenge and animal cruelty scenes which are hard to swallow but it was still generally good thriller entertainment. I congratulate everyone who worked on the movie and for being daring enough to make it so different from the rest of the Hollywood movies out there.