The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Plot synopsis:
Note: this is an English-language adaptation of the Swedish novel trilogy by Stieg Larsson. But with the same setting in Stockholm, Sweden.On his birthday, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), retired CEO of Vanger Industries, receives a pressed flower in the mail from an anonymous sender and phones retired inspector Gustaf Morell (Donald Sumpter).Co-owner of the magazine Millennium, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is swarmed by reporters as he leaves a courthouse, having lost a libel suit leveled against him by corrupt businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom (Ulf Friberg). His reputation destroyed and his life savings gone, Blomkvist returns to the office and informs his co-owner Erika Berger (Robin Wright), who is also his lover, that he is resigning.Dirch Frode (Steven Berkoff), the attorney of Henrik Vanger, meets with Dragan Armansky (Goran Visnjic) at the headquarters of Milton Security, having requested a background check on Blomkvist. Armansky has arranged for Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a girl in her twenties with multiple tattoos and facial piercings who is his best researcher and computer hacker, to come in and personally report her findings on Blomkvist.On Christmas Day, Blomkvist receives a phone call from Frode summoning him to the Vanger estate on Hedeby Island in Hedestad for a face-to-face meeting with Henrik. Upon his arrival, Henrik explains that he is interested in hiring Blomkvist to investigate the murder of his niece Harriet Vanger, who disappeared from the island over 40 years ago. Before she vanished, Harriet would give Henrik a pressed flower for his birthday every year, a tradition that he believes has been continued by the person responsible for her disappearance. Convinced that someone in the family murdered Harriet, Henrik will allow Blomkvist to conduct his investigation out of a cottage on the island, under the guise of writing a memoir about Henrik and his life. Blomkvist is reluctant to accept, until Henrik offers him incriminating evidence that would validate his claims against Wennerstrom.Meanwhile, Lisbeth pays a visit to the home of her legal guardian Holger Palmgren (Bengt C.W. Carlsson) and discovers that he has had a stroke. Ruled legally incompetent as a child, Lisbeth is a ward of the state and she is placed under the guardianship of lawyer Nils Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen), who takes full control of her finances.When her laptop computer is damaged during an attempted mugging at a local metro station in which she savagely beats her would-be attacker, Lisbeth goes to the apartment of Bjurman to get funds for a replacement, who forces her to perform sex acts on him in exchange for access to her money. One night, when she requests money for food, he has Lisbeth come to his apartment, where he handcuffs her to his bed and proceeds to rape and sodomize her, unaware that she has secretly recorded the crime using a hidden camera on her backpack.Taking up residence in the cottage, Blomkvist begins his investigation of Harriet, taking particular interest in a notebook of Harriet's that has a list of five names and a corresponding five-digit number for each of them. Speaking with Morell, the chief investigator who was called in when Harriet first disappeared, Blomkvist is informed that they are simply random local phone numbers. But a surprise visit from his daughter yields unexpected results, and he discovers that the names all belong to victims of unsolved murder cases and the numbers refer to specific bible verses in the Book of Leviticus that each depicts the different methods used in each killing.Lisbeth takes revenge on Bjurman. She visits him at his apartment again, asking him for money for rent. When he lets her in, she tasers him. He wakes up to find himself with his mouth taped shut, tied spread-eagled on the floor, and naked in his own bedroom. Lisbeth sodomizes him with an large steel bar and tells him how she recorded the previous night's rape. She tells him she intends to release it all over the Internet if he doesn't allow her to control her own finances and apply to have her status of legal incompetence rescinded. Before she leaves, she tattoos I AM A RAPIST PIG on his chest and informs him that she will kill him if he ever brings another woman to his apartment, involuntarily or voluntarily.Just as Blomkvist begins to suspect that he is on the trail of a serial killer, Henrik falls ill and Blomkvist must now answer to Frode and Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgård), brother of Harriet and current CEO of Vanger Industries who also lives on the island. Blomkvist requests a research assistant and Frode recommends Lisbeth, revealing that he paid for a background check on Blomkvist, which he demands to see. After reviewing the file, Blomkvist realizes that Lisbeth hacked into his computer and pressures Dragan Armansky into giving him her address for a face-to-face meeting.Meanwhile, Lisbeth goes to a local nightclub for a drink when she gets picked up by an equally outgoing woman named Miranda Wu, whom the flattered Lisbeth responds to her advances and takes LSD with her before they both return to Lisbeth's apartment where they spend the night together.The next morning, Blomkvist shows up on the doorstep of Lisbeth's apartment where he asks for her help with his case. Lisbeth is initially suspicious of him, but she relents when he reveals that he needs her assistance in finding a serial killer of women. She agrees.While he is waiting for Lisbeth to come to the cottage, Blomkvist takes a stroll across the island and is shot at by an unseen gunman, sending him fleeing back to the cottage where he finds that Lisbeth has arrived and even begun to set up surveillance cameras. After treating his head wound, Lisbeth strips naked and the two of them have sex, despite the initial reluctance of Blomkvist.While Lisbeth is off collecting information about each of the murders, Blomkvist discovers photos from a parade that Harriet attended on the day she disappeared, which imply that she saw something that frightened her. Visiting a woman who was also present at the parade, Blomkvist finds that she has an obscured picture of a mysterious man standing across the street from Harriet, whom he believes to be the killer. Once Lisbeth arrives on the island and presents her information from each murder, Blomkvist asks Frode and Martin for access to their corporate archives, in hopes of finding a connection between the company and the different locations of each killing.Scouring the archives dating back to the 1940s, Lisbeth discovers that Gottfried Vanger, the late nephew of Henrik, was in the same town as each of the women during the time they were murdered, with the exception of one victim who was killed two years after Gottfried downed in the lake outside his home on the island.Back on the island, Blomkvist pays a visit to Henrik's brother Harald Vanger (Per Myrberg), a recluse who is shunned by the rest of the family for being a Nazi, and asks to see some pictures he took from the days after Harriet first disappeared. One photo in particular catches his attention, because the person in the photo is wearing the same school uniform as the mysterious man from the parade. Blomkvist asks Harald to identify this man and he says that it is Martin when he was only a teenager.Back at the archives, Lisbeth begins to notice that Martin is visible in the background of news clippings of Gottfried visiting each of the towns on business, having accompanied his father on his travels. She then realizes that the final victim, killed two years after the death of Gottfried, studied at the same school as Martin, leading her to believe that he took after his father.Unable to reach Lisbeth due to poor cell phone reception, Blomkvist decides to break into Martin's house alone and look for clues, but Martin sees him. Martin invites Blomkvist in for a drink, and then leads Blomkvist at gunpoint to a secret basement where Martin gases him, knocking him unconscious. Marin chains Blomkvist and harnesses him to an overhead rail system. Martin casually reveals to Blomkvist that he used the basement to murder all his victims, and that he even had a girl captive in the basement when he met with Blomkvist and Frode a couple of days prior.Lisbeth returns to the cottage she has been sharing with Blomkvist during their research and looks through his research. She concludes Martin may be at the center of the girls' disappearance. She checks the cottage surveillance cameras and sees Martin looking for Blomkvist.In the basement, when Blomkvist suggests that Martin killed Harriet, Martin becomes furious and admits that he has no idea what happened to Harriet. He places a plastic bag over Blomkvist's head and prepares to kill Blomkvist, but hesitates when he is about to remove Blomkvist's pants. Lisbeth appears behind him and hits Martin across the face with a golf club. Martin falls to the floor and then escapes. Lisbeth grabs Martin's pistol and tries to find him in the house, when he flees in his car. Lisbeth chases him on her motorcycle, and when he attempts to run her off the road, he loses control of his car and crashes. Lisbeth walks towards the car, pistol in hand, but the car explodes and burns, killing Martin.With Martin dead, Blomkvist pays a visit to Anita Vanger (Joely Richardson) in London, who was the best friend of Harriet, but she is surprisingly unaffected by the news. Confronting her further, Blomkvist discovers that she is, in fact, Harriet. When she was a teenager, her father Gottfried would repeatedly rape her and eventually Martin began to do so as well. After fighting back one night and drowning her father in the lake, Harriet thought the nightmare was over, until she saw Martin at the parade, watching her intently from across the street after leaving school. Determined to get out, Harriet turned to Anita for help, who smuggled her off the island and whose identity Harriet assumed once she died several years later. Harriet has also been the one sending Henrik the flowers, intending for them to be a sign to him that she is living well.After Harriet returns to Sweden and back to the island for a tearful reunion with Henrik, Blomkvist discovers that the evidence Henrik has against Wennerstrom is useless, having passed the statute of limitations. But Lisbeth reveals that she has hacked into his computer and offers Blomkvist the evidence he needs, which he uses to convince Erika Berger to publish another article exposing Wennerstrom. When Wennerstrom goes on the run once the allegations and evidence become public, Lisbeth travels Europe in disguise and converts all of his funds into bonds which she takes for herself, making it appear as if he has emptied his accounts and taken it all for himself. His criminal associates are none too pleased and, in a matter of days, news breaks that Wennerstrom has been found dead.Having done all of this for Blomkvist, Lisbeth intends to declare her love for him by presenting him with a motorcycle jacket she saw in an old photograph on his computer. But, when she arrives at this apartment, Lisbeth sees him happily walking off with Erika, prompting her to throw his gift into a dumpster and then drive off on her motorcycle.

Tags: dark, suspenseful, gothic, murder, mystery, violence, atmospheric, flashback, psychedelic, action, revenge

Review:
The lights dim, the movie begins with a brief prologue, and the zany and incredibly weird opening credits begin, set to a creepy cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." From the beginning, we are in for a wild ride as Stieg Larsson's incredibly popular novel "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is brought to life on screen.Scorned journalist Mikael Blomkvist is called upon by Henrik Vanger, a very wealthy man, while writing a book.
Together, Mikael and Lisbeth go on a dark, eerie journey into a world of crime, Nazism, and corruption that will lead them to Harriet's assassin.I walked into "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" with almost no knowledge of Larsson's novel or the Swedish film made a few years before David Fincher's version.
The end result is ultimately an extremely satisfying, brutal, and complex thriller thanks to great direction by Fincher (known greatly for his work on "Seven," "The Game," and "The Social Network"), excellent writing, and an impeccably chosen cast.After only a few years, the character of Lisbeth Salander has become an attention-grabbing heroine that is as iconic as Edward Cullen of the love-it-or-hate-it "Twilight" series.
We're not sure of who is Harriet's killer, or if Harriet is even dead, until the last half hour of the film, and when we do find out the twist, it leaves a stupendous impact.After cementing his reputation in brutal crime thrillers, and surprising us with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "The Social Network," David Fincher was the right man for the director's chair.
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" isn't any different as Fincher adds his signature touch to the movie.Of all of the people they could have chosen to play these roles, the casting director landed in a pot of gold.
Getting her big break in the underrated remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and later starring in Fincher's previous film "The Social Network" (giving a dynamite performance in the opening scene), Mara has sealed her future with many more promising and exciting roles because of her portrayal of Lisbeth.
Overall, Mara gives a sensational, fearless, dedicated, and electrifying performance that guarantees an Oscar nod.Being released during the cheery time of the holidays, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is not a feel-good film, by any means.
For me, the modifications to Lisbeth's character weren't severe enough to put me off.The Swedish version captured a cult following for a reason and I would recommend both to anyone who has an interest in darker gritty movies that have a raw intensity to them.
It's also true whether Lisbeth is played on screen by Noomi Rapace (Swedish films) or Rooney Mara.
These changes may irk those fans who are a bit more loyal to the books, but Fincher surely wanted to offer more than a simple re-telling of the story.Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist hired to solve the 40 year old mystery of the disappearance/murder of Harriet Vanger, niece to Swedish millionaire Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer).
A brilliant performance from Rooney Mara only elevates the film to greater heights The Review:Ill cut to the chase: this is everything fans of the books could have hoped for, its miles better than the already good Swedish film, its more faithful to the novel, in some places it actually improves on the source material.With "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" David Fincher has put his trademark darkness to fantastic use.
Fincher, who directed films such as Fight Club, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, and most recently The Social Network (my favorite film of 2010 and what I thought should have won over The King's Speech), has a fantastic eye for filmmaking and has always impressed me with his movies, save for Se7en which I wasn't as huge a fan of as everyone else was and even on that film I enjoyed a good bit.
You throw in the writer of Schindler's List and Gangs Of New York, add actors like Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer and so many others, a score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who also scored The Social Network), and base it off the best selling book by Stieg Larsson (that's right, this isn't a remake but rather a re-adaptation), it all equals out to, in my opinion, the best film of the year by far.Now the first thing I want to say about this movie is Rooney Mara's performance.
It really sucks you in, and Steve Zaillian, the writer of this movie, structures the film in a way that is both similar and different to the Swedish version, therefore doing what I hoped this film would do, which was taking something that I already knew about and had watched before and made it to where it was still interesting and there were changes made to where I didn't know how it was going to turn out.
The editing, the direction, the shots, everything about this movie succeeds, making it a near perfect film.Now one small complaint I have about this film stems a little bit from me viewing the Swedish version, in which they reveal a little more about who Lisbeth is and one of the things she did in her past that made it so troubled.
I've never read Stieg Larsson's millennium novels, so I can't say how  faithful this film is to the original material, but I am a big fan of  the Swedish adaptation by Danish filmmaker Niels Arden Oplev.
Whether or not this version is better can  be argued but it certainly is a solid film   Rooney Mara, with her skinny body and goth hairstyle and excessive  piercings and tattoos and her attitude, I think Mara manages to give a  more complex Lisbeth Salander than Noomi Rapace's portrayal.
The US remake of "Dragon Tattoo" is inferior to the original in every aspect of film-making: script, acting, directing, cinematography, music, editing--even credits.
Rapace makes Lisbeth as fascinating as she is in the novels; Mara succeeds in making her only weird and sullen.The cobbled-together editing and crutch-like flashbacks make one wonder why Fincher decided to disrupt the original's great flow, energy and clarity with such ineffectual modifications, modifications that sap the story of its power.
Although beautifully shot in the lavish Finsheresque style, the story of a talented young investigator who teams up with a journalist to unravel a 40 year old mystery belongs in an episode of Inspector Morse rather than in a 3 hour long attempt to warp time.From the completely out of place opening sequence up, I was thoroughly annoyed that the film couldn't grab and hold my attention for even more than 3 consecutive scenes.
Having just seen the film I am at a loss as to why so many critics have given it a positive review.I hated the product placement........Rooney Mara was way out of her depth.............the script buried the story with a who's-who of the family........it also included some of the original book's sub-plots (which the Swedish version quite rightly left out)...I thought the 'jokey' chat between Lisbeth and Mikael laboured............the title sequence would have been better attached to an 'Alien 5'...I could go on..as for the changed end, actually I missed it as I walked out while Lisbeth and Mikael were following someones computer activity....another attempt at humour (Amazon,Solitaire) (I have seen the original (Extended Version) and can honestly say that it is far better.)PS 04/01/2012 Watched the original again tonight....No contest :-).
The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, whose work in Social Network I loved in it's unconventional appropriateness, felt totally out of place here and really grated on me quickly.With that slick, well-designed opening credits sequence accompanied by the very impressive cover of "Immigrant Song", I thought this was going to be a pretty exhilarating journey but two hours and forty minutes later I realized that those opening credits were the best thing about the film.
well well i thought that after destroying Let the right one in (Låt den Rätte Komma in) by making such a s**t remake Hollywood won't do it similar things anymore but they had to like always they need to destroy things Girl with dragon tattoo (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor) is great movie, great acting and directing everything, so David Fincher thought he can earn so made re-make of the same movie with same story just with Hollywood stars who honestly sucked in this, special girl who acted Lisbeth she ain't up knees to Noomi Rapace who did same role in original, anyway this is one more tragedy that come from united states of Hollywood from directors who don't have anymore ideas so they are stealing from others and when u doing a re-make you need to do it better if u can't get the f*** of it,,,,,,,, if u really wanna do favor to people don't do other two from trilogy.
Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara have perfected talking without moving one's lips.The story was not nearly as well explained as in the Swedish movies.
There's nothing remotely Swedish about the two main characters, Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomqvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander.
Christopher Plummer is an outstanding addition, Craig and Mara aren't good substitutes for the characters in the Swedish film, and the plot simplifications obscure the story.
First of all; I admit I was biased going in ( in favor of the original Swedish film; why remake a movie made only 2 years ago?
As I expected: David Fincher's American version is cleaner than Niels Arden Oplev's Swedish version, and that's the huge difference between them, also that's the huge difference between what is produced in Hollywood from what is produced outside Hollywood.My review is ONLY about the movie itself and not as an adaptation, so doesn't matter for me right now which one is more faithful to the book or not, but instead, which one of them has a better development since both are using exactly the same source.Unfortunately this is not an occasion like Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006), I mean, the same story but with open possibilities for several point of views.
He gave another dimension to a genre that was stuck, he kinda recreated the serial killer genre formula and the word "suspense" got another depth in movies such as Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999) and Panic Room (2002), movies that had become responsible for some changes about the way thrillers are produced since then.Making an American version of Stieg Larsson's novel (or maybe a remake of Niels Oplev's Swedish version) seems a little vain in Fincher's hands.
And in the other hand you have just an expensive sugar water.Swedish version was not afraid to be shocking, and as I said before, American version is cleaner, softer and also more didactic, truly a version made for those ones who do not like think too much while watching a complex movie, as another one said "Hollywood dumbs things down, making everything transparent and easily digestible for 10 year-olds".
So let's believe that what he stated is true, in that case he should have watched Swedish version before just to figure out how this movie should have been made.While Oplev's version is suspenseful and holds your attention from the beginning to the end, events and subplots are tied linearly and brilliantly never forgetting the importance of both characters, Fincher's version is boring and his storyline seems disconnected.
A waste of time and money, a shameless and bad made copy of Swedish version, and the most revolting thing is that Fincher's version will become more popular and called original, believe me.Those ones who are claiming this to be an "amazing adaptation" or the "best movie of the year", clearly haven't watched the Swedish trilogy or even cared for that.Leaving the theater I realized how Gus Van Sant's version of Psycho (1998) now seems so good..
And I've read much better mysteries that could have been made into films.I think the Swedish version is a rather good film that removes some of the book's tedium, but it's still nothing that I'd label as an "enduring classic" or some such hyperbole.I think this version, now I have the context of the real film, the original, is a steaming abortion and frankly rather embarrassing:The opening credits are idiotic, grating, and inappropriate: telegraphing that wheels had fallen off.Rooney Mara's performance is shockingly, appallingly bad.
I don't know.Daniel Craig mailed-in his performance.Everyone but Craig has absurd Swedish accents but speak in English.The music is god-awful, sorry Trent but it is, it's totally wrong for the film.It's almost a shot-for-shot remake of the original, but in a purely colour-by-numbers, box-ticking way.Everything is More, Bigger, Longer, like a Spielberg effort.
The best movie would have been a mix of both, the American version could have been awesome if they just understand how important the casting of Lisbeth is (for those who did not read the books, you'll see what I mean in the next 2 movies - I really feel like she is much more important then Blomkvist in the trilogy)..
It's so blatant it's incredible the script got past the final draft.Full of plot holes, the acting is lacklustre and the cinematography that people have been talking of is over rated I think.It was really very predictable that this would be the outcome - I'm a massive fan of Fight Club and Se7en but Fincher didn't cut the mustard with this.It's clearly been done for a North American market - OK fair enough - but when the original is so much better to remake it barely a year after its original release is madness.Daniel Craig doesn't even attempt a Swedish accent making him seem totally out of place.
Finally I caught 20 minutes of the "The girl who played with fire" Swedish version on HBO.Was the movie good enough?Did Noomi Rapace justify the character of Lisbeth Salander.
Then came the news of English version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" directed by David Fincher, starring Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander about whom I had never heard before.
I have seen the Swedish film, now this English speaking version, but never read the book.
As for performances, I thought Daniel Craig came across well.Whilst watching this film and since leaving the cinema, I have found it impossible to not compare this English version to its Swedish predecessor.
Nevertheless his contribution was worthy of note, and Fincher has made a good looking film here, and really undertaken a courageous act in making this story around two years after the highly successful Swedish version.
Although I come to understand the plot is more faithful to the novel, the poor editing and the awkward pace had only succeeded in messing up the flow of thought by the lead characters and their actions, subsequently, appeared distorted to the audience...thus giving the effect that some of the conclusions or deductions arrived at were abrupt and lacked ample reasoning, and some of the actions were nonsensical (because they happened too quickly or lacked proper follow-through), all of which were more clearly explained in Män som hatar kvinnor.I am not even going to credit acting performances...yes they SHOULD be better than the 2009 version, given the fact that the actors have the privilege to improvise from the first movie, but aside from Mara who did a great job dramaticizing the role of the main character, the rest are just mehhhh....
Having read and enjoyed the book and Swedish movie, I waited to see this film on pay-per-view, which is kind of good news considering ticket prices these days.
I have not watched many foreign films with English subtitles, so, if you haven't already read the book or seen the American film version, I highly recommend the Swedish movie..
Which is funny considering the American version has a longer run time.As a reader of the book I recognized the full story behind things they only glance over and I would have felt better about this movie if they were left out.
It's an American product, based on the Swedish film of the same name in 2009, itself based on the Stieg Larsson novels about a wildly eccentric 23 year old woman, Lisbeth (Rooney Mara), who has the investigative skills of Sherlock Holmes and the prowess of La Femme Nikita.Daniel Craig plays a disgraced journalist, Mikael, engaged by a powerful family to answer one of its darkest secrets and at the same time get revenge on his courtroom antagonist, who caused his disgrace.
It can be put short: If you have seen the original Swedish version don't waste your time watching this one.Forget all the talk about "this is not a remake - this is a new adaptation".
I haven't read the book or seen the Swedish version, but this film definitely made me interested in seeing it (and its sequels) which is all you can really ask for in an adaptation.
Having watched the Swedish version first, I was very impressed and surprised by how good this American adaptation actually is.Daniel Craig is excellent as the journalist Mikael Blomkvist and plays the understated leading man role to perfection.
However it is a movie which you rather it not end due to the entertaining characters and the intense visual situations which you wish to look away from, but you can't.When it comes to the characters, I found that Rooney Mara played a much better Lisbeth than Noomi Rapace.
It is easy to say that this was better than the Swedish version of this film, and partly thanks to the performance by Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander.
The portrayal of Lisbeth, as directed by Fincher, and as portrayed by Mara, is a huge disappointment, and not true to the character in the book at all.There were other missteps in this version as well.
However, I think Craig made a good Blomkvist in the end.Noomi Rapace is a far better fit for Lisbeth than Rooney Mara.