Five stars in Empire magazine? Are they joking?
The problem with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is that it stems from a source novel that is terribly flawed. As much as I enjoyed the book, the characters, apart from Lisbeth Salander, are generally uninteresting and the plot reads more like a foreign episode of Murder She Wrote than the critically lauded novel it’s become. These trappings are apparent in the film. Whilst Blomkvist is more subdued here than his literary counterpart (in the book he sleeps with many of the female characters on a casual and regular basis), it also makes him more boring. Also, the absurd leaps of logic that the characters make and the over the top execution of some of the scenes jar completely with the brutal sexual violence and the nature of the murders they eventually uncover.
Salander however works as well on film as she does on the page. Noomi Rapace’s performance is excellent, nailing Salander’s quirks and oddities as if she had just walked from the novel. I was also thankful that coda had been severely reduced. Blomkvist’s ending 100-page comeback after his libel defeat was one of my main complaints of the book.
Not as good as it would have you believe. The fact that David Fincher is doing and English language version does not entice me. I'm kinda bored with the series as a whole already, and i've still the final book to read.
Wont be eagerly waiting for the next two films, both of which were released in Sweden late last year.
3/5
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