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.

Thor

I'm a pretty big fan of Norse mythology.  Part of it is due to my Swedish ancestry and part of it is because Norse myths are basically set up like The Dirty Dozen; yes, the gods are all pretty bad-ass, but they all know that they're on a suicide mission called Ragnarok.   When I heard that Marvel Studios was going to be making a Thor movie as part of their announced Avengers franchise, I was a bit skeptical.  Sure, I've enjoyed the movies the studio has made so far (the Iron Man films and The Incredible Hulk), but Thor is a different type of character entirely.  This wouldn't be about making a fantastic character down to Earth, it would be about telling a story about a foreign god that most Americans are fairly unfamiliar with and turning it into a superhero movie.  There are a LOT of ways to do this story wrong.  Hell, even the comics only get it right every five years or so.  Now, I will admit that I read comics and have a decent collection of classic Thor issues, so I am definitely approaching this movie as a bit of a fanboy.

This issue was, in all seriousness, awesome.

That said, I entered Thor with high hopes and dreadful fears.  Would this join the ranks of awesome Marvel Comics movies, like X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, and Iron Man 2, or would it be an incomprehensible mess, like X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, and Daredevil?

Right off the bat, the film makes a wise choice by (more or less) starting the film in Asgard, home of the Norse gods.  The King of Asgard, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is preparing to pass on the mantle of king to one of his sons, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), when there is a security breach within their castle.  Some Frost Giants, the immortal enemies of Asgard, managed to sneak in unseen and almost stole a weapon of great power before they were terminated with extreme prejudice by Odin's deadly sentry, the Destroyer.  Thor's immediate impulse is to take the fight to the Frost Giants, but Odin forbids any acts of war; he reasoned that this was an act made by a few, and they have been appropriately punished.  Thor seethes, but does nothing.  That is, he does nothing until he is baited by his brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  Thor decides to go to Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, with his partners in crime, Loki, Sif (Jaime Alexander), and the Warriors Three (Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg).  Why does he go?  Ostensibly, to get an apology from the Frost Giant king, but he's really there to fight.  And fight they do.  The Asgardians beat the living hell out of several dozen Frost Giants, but they are outnumbered and do not have any back-up.  A royally pissed-off Odin arrives and manages to keep the peace, but he punishes Thor by banishing him to Earth, without his godly powers.  Odin also takes away Thor's signature hammer, whispering an enchantment to it that more or less states that whoever can lift the hammer will have the power of Thor.

Most of the rest of the film follows Thor on Earth as he adjusts to not being a god.  Naturally, a brawny blonde that claims to be the god of thunder showing up right around the time and place that an unmovable hammer arrives garners some attention from all sorts of people, including scientists and the military.  However, the humbling of a god does not answer one key question.  How did those Frost Giants sneak into the supposedly impenetrable Asgard and set these events in motion?

One of the more interesting aspects of this film's production process was the decision to hire Shakespearean expert Kenneth Branagh to direct the movie.  As far as his Shakespeare films go, Branagh is one of the best in the business, both as an actor and as a director.  As for his other movies, well...Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was pretty godawful.  The man definitely has a good touch with his actors, though, as anyone working with (mostly) plays must have.  I thought he did a pretty solid job with Thor.  The action scenes (which he hasn't directed before) looked good and, in some cases, were pretty awesome.  The characters that had more than a few lines were all acted quite well by the cast, and I was particularly impressed by the lead performances of Thor and Loki by two unknown actors.  Branagh does not have the lightest touch when it comes to cinematography (I hope you like lopsided camera angles), but his choices all make sense.  All in all, I think Branagh did an adequate job with making the film look good and a very good job with the cast.

Speaking of the cast, I was alternately very impressed and depressed by Thor.  Chris Hemsworth was great in the lead role, capturing the arrogance of the character wonderfully.  His character could have been a little deeper, but Hemsworth more than delivered with what was given to him.  I was also impressed by Tom Hiddleston's Loki; Loki is a great character in mythology (and Neil Gaiman's fiction), and Hiddleston took a character that could easily just be evil and made him mischievous, cunning, and emotionally desperate.  This is definitely my favorite performance of a Marvel villain since Ian McKellan's Magneto.  I was surprised to see Anthony Hopkins giving a solid performance as Odin, since he has been mostly just mailing in his work for the past decade.  He wasn't spectacular, but he seemed regal and cold, which fits the part well.  I was far less impressed by Natalie Portman's role as Jane Foster, an astrophysicist that develops a romance with the thunder god.  She should be a pretty important part of the story, but aside from being a decently strong female character (read: she argues with the men-folk), she doesn't do much.  I'll give her credit for being more than just another damsel in distress, but that's not enough to stack up against the gods.

The rest of the supporting cast is similarly underwhelming.  Jane Foster's friends, played by Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings, are likable enough, but never get past generic stereotypes.  Thor's Asgardian buddies have a similar problem, although they are less endearing.  Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun), Josh Dallas (Fandral) and Jaime Alexander all seem like they should have more depth, but they are surprisingly bland.  Aside from Volstagg's appetite and their general appearances, these four warriors are interchangeable in the story.  Colm Feore, who seems to get cast in big budget movies more for a willingness to wear extensive makeup than anything else, was mediocre as the king of the Frost Giants.  You would think his character would have a little more depth, or at least a few wicked moments, but I guess it's okay, since he's essentially a red herring.  Clark Gregg was okay as the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he is certainly no Samuel L. Jackson.  You might be surprised to see Rene Russo in a small part, since her last role was six years ago.  You might not be surprised to hear that she doesn't do much of anything in the movie.  On the other hand, the requisite Stan Lee cameo was handled pretty well.

There was a minor controversy when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall, the gatekeeper.  Personally, I don't have a problem with casting against type, and I think Elba has some serious potential as an actor.  He did good work in a small part here, and that should be where the controversy begins and ends.

What, he doesn't look Swedish?

This is a superhero movie, though --- the acting can only take it so far.  The action is, in parts, pretty entertaining.  I thought that most of the fight scenes were great, especially the ones on Earth.  I would have preferred the battle to be in a place where more stuff could be destroyed, but whatever.  The battle that opens the film had some inconsistent special effects, which distracted me, but the rest of the movie looked very good.  Actually, this movie is fairly action-packed, with far less time devoted to character development; that is a sharp change from the recent Marvel movies (aside from the horribad Wolverine flick), and not necessarily a bad one.  The story slows down significantly and takes on a more humorous tone when Thor is on Earth, so the movie feels a bit uneven at times.  And how much time passes in this movie?  The events in Asgard seem to take place at one pace, while the Earth storyline might have only covered about two or three days, which seems like a pretty compact amount of time for a character to learn a life lesson.  Still, the fight scenes were pretty sweet and I thought the off-Earth scenes were handled quite well, on the whole.

Thor is different from every other superhero movie that has come out because it is more than a superhero tale --- it has to be mythic.  While it doesn't get everything exactly right, I think this is a pretty entertaining action movie with some impressive fantasy elements in it.  The well thought-out work that was done to bring Asgard and Jotunheim to life helps elevate this movie above some of the more mediocre elements in its makeup.

What would have made this movie better?  A more well-defined Frost Giant king, either differentiating between Thor's war buddies or cutting some of them from the script, and a love interest that could go more than two minutes without mentioning the possibility of Thor being crazy.  More epic special effects in the flashback battle would have helped, too --- or, since it was a story, maybe animating it like an old story.  Thor is still pretty entertaining, and the lead actors were fun to watch.  It's just not up to the level of, say, an Iron Man.