The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

It had to happen.  Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has been far too popular a book series to simply get the film treatment in Larsson's native Sweden.  Even though the Swedish version was released in 2009 and featured an excellent performance from Noomi Rapace, it was inevitable that Hollywood would adapt the material as fast as it could with a high-profile director and cast.  Interestingly, the titular female part in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo went to relative newcomer Rooney Mara.  How will she stack up as a character that so many people have come to love from the books?

Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is the recently disgraced journalist/editor of Millennium magazine, because this is a science fiction story where magazines are still important publications.  Mikael is basically ruined because he lost a libel case.

Glasses off: James Bond.  Glasses on: incompetent reporter.

At his lowest, Mikael receives an unusual job offer from Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer); Henrik wants Mikael to investigate the murder of his beloved granddaughter, Harriet, in exchange for information that will allow Mikael to clear his name and revive his career.  Sounds fair enough, right?  Well, Harriet disappeared forty years ago and her body was never found. Henrik suspects his own extended family, who own the island where they live, because they are the only ones who would have a motive to kill the girl.  Also, on the fateful day she disappeared, there was a car accident that blocked the only bridge in and out of town; Harriet was alive and well when the accident occurred, but was gone before the road was clear.  Sweet!  It's an old school, closed-door mystery!

It's a mystery that involves framed, dried flowers and a lack of wall space.  Thrilling...?

When he was hired, Mikael got to see the extensive background check Henrik's people had done on him; and by "extensive," I mean "obviously stepping over the line, into an invasion of privacy."  Still, Mikael knows good work when he sees it, so he contacts and hires the person who learned so much about him, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), to be his research assistant.  Lisbeth is rather abrasive, but she is extremely bright and is a skilled computer hacker.  Pretty soon, the two of them have dusted off a forty year-old mystery and connected it to a series of brutal murders.  They apparently didn't think about how much danger that puts them in, especially if Henrik is right and the killer is one of the few people with them on that island.

Luckily, Lisbeth is the human equivalent of the honey badger

The acting in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is good all-around.  I like Daniel Craig, and it was interesting to see him in a relatively action-free role.  He doesn't have quite the charisma or exude danger like he does in other movies, but he comes across as a direct, intelligent person here.  I will point out, though, that the way he wore his glasses when he was thinking --- hanging off his face, like a chinstrap --- was a ridiculous choice that I have never seen replicated in nature.  Or libraries.  Craig had the easy role in the film, though.  Rooney Mara had the tough one, and I'm not saying that because of her unfortunate bangs and bleached eyebrows.

Shouldn't she accessorize with neck bolts?

This is an incredibly difficult role to pull off; she has to be obviously smart, but emotionally detached, and yet she still has to be naive and emotional --- she is both vulnerable and a warrior.  It is a role full of contradictions, and Mara was very good at expressing them.  Time (and an adaptation of the next film in the series) will tell if Mara winds up being a better Lisbeth Salander than Noomi Rapace, but her varied performance was deserving of her Oscar nomination.  Of course, those two are just the primary characters; there were a handful of other important actors in this film.  Christopher Plummer turned in yet another solid supporting role; he has been on a roll for the past few years, hasn't he?  I wish he was given a little more time to emote on-camera --- his character is the only one with a true emotional investment in what is happening, after all --- but he did a good job with the time he was given. 

Robin Wright was fine as Mikael's co-worker/occasional lover.  I've never been a big fan of her work, but I liked the nonchalance with which she approached her relationships.  Stellan Skarsgård did not give his best performance here(I blame the character more than the actor), but he did deliver some great monologues.  It is to his credit that he was able to steal attention away from Mara in his major scenes.  While I have to admit that Skarsgård doesn't often star in good movies, I think he is very talented and we see glimpses of that toward the end of this film.

"I almost made King Arthur mediocre"

Yorick van Wageningen played a pretty repulsive character, and his performance was suitably unsavory.  In any other movie, he would have been a major villain, but this story casts him in a fairly small, but memorable, part.  You might also recognize Goran Visnijc in an inconsequential role, Julian Sands as a young Christopher Plummer, while Joely Richardson and Geraldine James get to be unfriendly to every single person they encounter onscreen. 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo marks an interesting moment in the career of director David Fincher.  This is the first time I have watched one of his movies and noticed how differently he would have handled it earlier in his career.  In many ways, this film could have played out like Se7en, and that would have been perfectly fine because that's an awesome movie.  In other words, Fincher could have made this a plot-driven film with a variety of camera gimmicks to show off his skills.  For better or for worse, Fincher has embraced a more subtle touch, focusing more on the primary actors in his films recently.  Sure, that sounds good on paper, but I don't think anyone will argue that Brad Pitt was more fun to watch in Benjamin Button than in Fight Club.  Fincher did a great job with Rooney Mara and centered ...Dragon Tattoo around her performance.  He could have gone for more graphic violence, especially in the rape scene, but he focused more on the aftermath. 

He could have exploited the sex in the script, but aside from a little bit of nipple ring-flashing, he went out of his way to not sensationalize it --- and this is a guy who directed Madonna videos, so I'm thinking his restraint was intentional.  I also liked his use of the score (once again contributed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) --- it was well-suited for the mood Fincher was establishing.  Technically, I can't think of anything David Fincher did wrong with the direction of this film.

Of course, that's not exactly a glowing recommendation, is it?  The actors are all pretty good, and Rooney Mara's performance borders on greatness.  The story's pacing was fine and I liked the overall mood of the film.  It was just missing something for me.  Did I want the violence to be more graphic?  Maybe, although I was relieved that the rape was as brief as it was. 

Not this scene.  This was awesome.

Was it the weird blend of European and American sensibilities?  Not exactly, although I was thrown off by the fact that everyone spoke English, but apparently wrote in Swedish.  Was it the weird James Bond-esque opening sequence that looked like a Bond girl covered in crude oil?  No, I was okay with that, especially since it's the closest thing to a new Bond title sequence I've seen in a while.  What did bother me about this movie is that it is a mystery with only one major actor in the suspect pool; I wonder if the villain will be the Swedish character actor I've never seen before, or the guy that's been in Summer blockbusters?  I hate when my recognition of actors undermines a mystery. 

I also have problems with James Bond needing stitches.  Wuss.

I had also hoped that the climax of the story --- while true to the source material, it should be noted --- would be less anticlimactic.  In fact, the whole story seems to be building to a conflict between Lisbeth, Mikael and the killer, and we never really get a great moment like that.  Is the problem with the source material or the filmmaker's vision?  That's debatable, but I found the climax to be disappointing and the falling action to be less than triumphant.

On the other hand, this is a better movie than the 2009 Swedish version.  If you're going to remake a movie, especially so soon after the original, it is important to improve upon the formula.  Daniel Craig was definitely a step up in the acting department from Michael Nyqvist and Rooney Mara was about as good as (although less edgy than) Noomi Rapace.  I also preferred the small changes made in this version, like what led Mikael to meeting Lisbeth.  Fincher did not show off much with the cinematography, but his direction was still felt more than that of the Swedish director.  I feel a little guilty for having such high expectations for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  It's a Hollywood remake of a Swedish film (that I've seen) that is based on a work of popular fiction (which I normally despise as a genre).  Still, I think that the acting and direction upgrades more or less negate the anticlimax.  I thought that the Swedish Millennium films dropped rapidly in quality with each sequel, but this gives me hope that Fincher and co. will be able to improve on those films, as well.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Well, that was quick.  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third and final film in the Millennium Trilogy, based on the books by Steig Larsson; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire also had American theatrical releases in 2010.  I think it is worth pointing out that this film's title was changed for American audiences.  The Swedish title was Luftslottet Som Sprängdes, which means "The Air Castle That was Blown Up."  Okie dokie, then.


Hornet's Nest picks right when Played With Fire ended.  Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is suffering from several gunshot wounds, her evil father, Zalachenko, is suffering from gunshot wounds and an axe to the head, and her evil half-brother, Niedermann (Micke Spreitz), is trying to escape police custody.  Lisbeth and Zalachenko both reach the hospital in time to save their lives, thanks to Lisbeth's reporter friend Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) calling an ambulance in time.  While recovering from brain surgery to remove the bullet in her head, Lisbeth is charged with the attempted murder of her father.  Knowing that Lisbeth doesn't stand a chance against those charges --- with her aggressive goth-punk look, history of alleged mental illness, and cyber-criminal activities, he has a point --- Mikael decides to dedicate an entire issue of his muckraking magazine, Millennium, to proving Lisbeth's innocence.  Things get a bit more complicated when a clandestine government group decides that Zalachenko and Lisbeth must die before they have the chance to talk to the authorities.  The group makes their move and kills Zalachenko, but Lisbeth survived.  Now, this group is pulling all the strings they can to guarantee Lisbeth gets declared "criminally insane" and locked up in the asylum of their choice, attended by doctors that they can trust.  How can Mikael possibly compete with the people behind the people behind the people who stand behind the president?  By being a reporter, of course.

"Does this look like the face of a murderer?"

If you have read the books or seen the other two films, you might notice just how different each story is.  The first movie was a kind of closed-door mystery, the second was a thriller, and this one is a courtroom drama.  The direction and pacing of the movies doesn't change from film to film, but that abrupt change in genre is all the more apparent with the short span of time between the release dates of the films.  The acting in this movie is about the same as the other two; Lisbeth spends a lot of time sulking and being stubborn, so more of the narrative duties fall on Mikael.  Once again, Noomi Rapace is the best thing about the movie, even if her character spent less time active in this film, and Michael Nyqvist turned in another mediocre performance (better than last time, though).  The direction of Daniel Alfredson is simple and efficient, with little time spent on anything that doesn't propel the plot forward.

I had hoped that this film would succeed where so many other "Part 3" movies have failed.  After all, it was filmed and released in the same year as its predecessor, so there was no change in major cast or crew.  And I will give it credit for not trying to out-do the second film.  Instead of trying to top that fast-paced thriller, it opts for a Grisham-esque legal battle.  I thought that was an interesting and unexpected choice, but it ultimately didn't work for me.  The key to a good legal thriller is some sort of reveal, where a key piece of evidence suddenly shows everyone the truth.  This movie doesn't tell us anything new about Lisbeth.  If you saw the first two movies, you have every personal detail that they revealed in the courtroom.  Where were the twists?  Where was the surprise?  This was a whole movie about Lisbeth's life, and it took most of its information from the last movie.  The American title implies that Lisbeth had tempted the fates and gotten herself in trouble, but the fact of the matter is that her character was a victim the entire time.  But if you've watched any of these films, that is obvious already.

The thing that really bugged me was the complete lack of explanation why a secret government group would bother with Lisbeth.  "It's because they brought her father into the country as a Soviet defector."  Yeah, so?  I don't understand what was so dangerous about her that these men went out of their way to harm her.  I'm not saying that there was no feasible reason for this secret group to act the way they did.  I'm saying that it is not explained in the movie.  The villains don't have a motive.  That's either the worst subtitle-job ever, or the filmmakers were inept.  I'm leaning toward the latter.  Why?  Well, there are all sorts of odd details that bothered me in this movie, details that should have been caught in the script stage, but managed to make it in the final product.  For starters, an experienced secret government agent goes to the hospital to kill Lisbeth and Zalachenko; he doesn't use a silencer, a pillow, or even a 20oz soda bottle to dull the sound of the gunshot.  Everyone hears the shot, and there is enough time for someone to help protect Lisbeth.  You don't get to be an elderly covert agent without quietly killing a few people, but this moron brought an extra loud popgun for an assassination job?  That makes no sense.  Also weird: Lisbeth eats pizza by folding the tip back to the crust.  And I thought New Yorkers had it wrong.  That's not really a jab at the movie as a whole, but it bugged me.  For the courtroom scenes, Lisbeth dresses her goth-iest, complete with chains, studs, and spiked accessories.  How is someone in police custody, someone presumed to be crazy, allowed access to potentially dangerous gear?  Again, that makes no sense.

This movie isn't terrible.  The story is told clearly and it helps the characters complete something vaguely resembling an emotional arc (well, Lisbeth does, anyway).  This movie just isn't necessary.  The whole film just feels like falling action from the previous movie, wrapping up loose ends and helping Lisbeth clear her name.  I don't see a need for that to have taken more than half an hour, tops.  Maybe I would feel differently if the bad guys had known motives.  Maybe not.  This third chapter to the Millennium Trilogy is definitely the worst of the bunch.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Why are the headlights still on?

Aww, yeah!  It's Swedish sequel time!  Interesting side note: if you do a Google image search for "Swedish sequel," you may find this.  Hot on the heels of the hit Swedish-language film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the next part of the Millennium Series just hit DVD shelves.  This is the adaptation of Steig Larsson's book of the same name, which was a world-wide best seller.  The film was released just seven months after Dragon Tattoo and just two months before the final entry in the series, so you know these Swedes are trying to hit while the iron's hot.  The budget was slashed for the sequels --- it was assumed by the producers that the sequels would be direct-to-DVD, but the $100 million dollar success of the first film changed that --- which usually isn't a good sign.  How did it turn out?  Let's find out.

Over a year has passed since the events of Dragon Tattoo, and the heroine Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns home to Sweden after a year abroad.  She tries to keep a relatively low profile, partially because she does a lot of illegal computer hacking and partially because she is blackmailing her guardian officer (it's like a parole officer for formerly institutionalized Swedes) into giving her glowing development reviews.  As such, Lisbeth lets her friend and sometime girlfriend, Mia, stay at her old apartment, rent free.  Meanwhile, Lisbeth's old pal Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) and his co-workers at Millenium magazine are preparing an expose into human trafficking and prostitution.  When the reporter who is writing the article is found murdered with his wife, the police are able to trace the gun used back to Lisbeth's guardian officer.  That's good.  But he's dead and Lisbeth's fingerprints are all over the gun.  That's bad.  The police naturally start a womanhunt for Lisbeth, but they aren't the only ones looking for her; some scary dudes involved in the drug trade are also in the hunt.  Hey, Mia, I bet that free apartment doesn't sound so great now.  Mikael decides to use his investigative eye to help Lisbeth, but it is ultimately up to her to find out who has framed her and why.

Like the last film, Played With Fire is fairly plot heavy; unlike the last film, it is less of a mystery and more of a thriller.  Daniel Alfredson takes over the directing chair this time, but I didn't notice any difference in style from the first one.  So, either this is the best sequel ever for maintaining the look and feel of its predecessor, or maybe Swedes just don't have any style.  The acting in this movie is both better and worse than the last film.  Noomi Rapace turns in a far superior performance in this film; she spends some time acting, instead of just posing as a surly Goth chick.  There is almost no screen time shared between Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, which helps build up the strength of her character.  Nyqvist's performance definitely suffered without Rapace's Goth-crazy to fuel him; I would rate him at four out of five on the "dead behind the eyes" scale.  For those scoring at home, a dumb eight year-old in a calculus class gets a one, and these hacks pull a perfect five.  The supporting cast is, surprisingly, a little better this time around, with former boxer Paulo Roberto playing himself (but not Mike Tyson making a cameo, this guy had a substantial role) and Micke Spreitz essentially playing the Swedish version of Kevin Nash's Russian from The Punisher; that means that he is big and blonde, and when he gets hit, he just looks confused instead of hurt.

There is a lot to like in this movie.  I was impressed by how much Roomi Rapace improved from film to film, and I liked her character more this time around.  It helps that she's portrayed as less crazy than in the first film.  I always enjoy seemingly indestructible villains (like Spreitz), so that was fun for me, too.  There is a lot more action and violence in this movie, including some fairly realistic (and still pretty bad ass) moves from Rapace, several gunshot wounds, and somebody getting an axe to the head.  Along with the violence, this movie brings the sex, too, with a moderately graphic (by American standards) lesbian scene.  The film's pace is probably the best thing about it; a lot happens in this movie, including research, but the characters are always moving, which really helps even the slow parts seem active.

Unfortunately, pacing doesn't hide all of the movie's shortcomings.  I am all for films that want the viewers to figure out what is going on, but I didn't appreciate the vast difference between telling Mikael and Lisbeth's parts of the story.  Whenever Michael was going to do something, he explained it first to someone else, and then did it.  Lisbeth would stare at a computer screen and then abruptly choose to do something, sometimes even going to a spot where Mikael had been only a few scenes before.  Yes, I realize that Lisbeth had access to Mikael's computer and was taking information from him and applying it to her own, but I think that explanation could have been mentioned once in the film, at least; there were times where I had to figure out why she was going wherever she was going, and that was distracting.  I wasn't a huge fan of the story itself, although I liked the way it was told; when you boil things down to their core, this is a story that seems more at home in a comic book or a professional wrestling ring than in a thriller.  And, again, I wish the story depended less on Mikael to figure things out, because Nyqvist's emotional range varies from sleepy-eyed indifference to sleepy-eyed mild surprise.  Even with Rapace's performance, this movie sorely misses the feel of genuine acting, as there is little to no need for chemistry between characters when they're just running from place to place.

Overall, I think fans of the book will be just fine with this adaptation.  It is better than it should be, given the budget, and definitely feels like the next chapter in the story.  I don't think the story is nearly as strong this time around, but the frenetic pace almost makes that point moot.  I will admit, though, that I am a sucker for the thriller genre.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Foreign films can be difficult for some people to get into.  I sympathize.  The language barrier can impede the enjoyment of a lot of great films, unless you are able to read subtitles.  If you're moderately literate, then you have no excuse for your laziness.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the Swedish film adaptation of Steig Larsson's book, whose American title is the same as this movie's.  The Swedish title, Män som hatar kvinnor, translates into "Men Who Hate Women."  I guess we can learn two things about this movie from its two titles.  One: this probably isn't about a female martial artist.  **Sigh.**  Two: judging from the Swedish title, this will be a comic romp that will finally introduce Swedish comedy to the world at large.  Get ready for two hours of Swedish Fish jokes and Swedish Chef impressions!  Bork bork bork!

Actually, this is a murder mystery that, for the sake of the mystery, I will just give you the background on.  Recently disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is hired by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to investigate the forty year-old disappearance of his niece, Harriet.  She disappeared from her island home on a day that the only bridge into town was blocked for twelve hours with no one entering or leaving the island.  Her body was never found, and she was never seen again; her last few hours alive are documented through some photographs of a parade that day, but that is basically the only clues that exist.  Henrik suspects a member of his own family for the murder; they are all heirs to the vast Vanger Corporation fortune, but the murder was probably not for monetary reasons.  The Vanger family has many secrets, though, including the fact that three out of the four eldest Vangers were Nazis.  Why does Henrik suspect his own family?  Because, for his birthday, Harriet always gave him a framed pressed flower; for the last forty years, somebody has been sending him similar framed pressed flowers from all over the globe on his birthday.  Knowing how cold and bitter his relatives are, Henrik has concluded that one of them is the killer and is taunting him.

What does this have to do with a dragon tattoo?  Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is a computer hacker that was hired by Vanger's people to check on Mikael before Henrik hired him.  Lisbeth believes that Mikael's recent disgrace was not his own doing, and thanks to her in-depth work, Henrik hires Mikael. Lisbeth is a little weird; she has the fashion sense of a Cure fan and the personality to match.  For whatever reason --- maybe she got a crush on Mikael when she was cyber-stalking him, I don't know --- she decides to hack into his computer and see what he's up to.  She discovers his files on Harriet's murder and decodes a clue.  Trying to be helpful but still Goth, she sends an anonymous email to Mikael with the clue; since he's a clever reporter, he finds a way to backtrack the email to her computer and asks her to help him with the case.  Together, they start to uncover details relating to not only Harriet's disappearance, but evidence pointing to the murders of several young local women over a forty year period.  Oh, and Lisbeth is the girl with the dragon tattoo, in case the word "Goth" didn't clue you in.

I haven't read the book this is based on yet, but I do have some experience with Swedish novels; in my experience, they tend to be pretty straightforward affairs, heavy on plot and relatively light on emotion and style.  That reliance on plot makes stories like this ideal for adapting to the big screen.  The director, Niels Arden Oplev, does a pretty good job telling the story, but I think I appreciated what he left out more than anything else.  This movie has some rape in it.  It's not an I Spit on Your Grave remake, by any means, but that doesn't change my attitude toward rape (for the record: I'm against it).  The rape scene is shot briefly and there is no real nudity, eroticism, or unnecessary grossness shown; it's an ugly act that the director knows the audience would rather see pass quickly, and he thankfully does so.

As far as the acting goes, I was pretty indifferent to Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace throughout the film.  I enjoyed the story, but felt that Nyqvust was particularly bland.  He wasn't awful, but he tended to work on just one level.  Rapace was better as the clearly disturbed Goth chick, but I have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable with her mannish features.  I don't require every female lead in the movies I watch to be supermodel quality, but Rapace has some veiny neck and shoulder muscles, and I was a little creeped out.

This movie was probably better than it should have been.  Apparently, the Swedish film company that made this (and the adaptations for the book's two sequels) assumed that Dragon Tattoo would be the only one of the trilogy to be released in theaters; its popularity allowed all three to hit Swedish theaters in the last year and a half.  That intent implies that these movies were made for relatively small amounts of money, which would explain some of the supporting actor quality.  I thought the cinematography was uninspired, too, because mysteries are always ripe for some cool camera shots that subtly indicate the murderer.  Still, I found the story interesting and the director kept the plot moving, which was appreciated.  This was the best "locked room" mystery I have encountered in quite some time, and I thought the small town full of suspects was a pleasant reminder of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories. This is one foreign film that I think could be improved with a Hollywood remake, so I'm kind of psyched to see the Daniel Craig version next year.