Oxygen.ie - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Review

Why come up with an original script when you can just copy and paste from a successful book and guarantee that the fan base of said book will go see the film? Well, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a really successful book selling over 15 million copies in America alone. So now the book has received its second movie adaption after a Swedish version was released in 2009 and now it’s the turn of Hollywood and renowned director David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network).

The film stars Daniel Craig (James Bond) and Rooney Mara who play the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander respectively. Mikael Blomkvist is a publisher of a magazine called “Millenium” but his career takes a turn for the worse when he loses a libel case against billionaire industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstrom that leaves him financially broken and forces him to resign from his position at Millenium magazine.

However, Blomkvist is thrown a life-line when he is invited to meet Henrik Vagner, the retired CEO of the Vagner Corporation who wants Blomkvist to use his journalistic skills and investigate the murder of his grand-daughter that occurred 30 years ago and who Vagner believes was murdered by a member of his family.

This hairstyle is very popular these days.

James Bland.

For carrying out this investigation and solving the cold case, Wagner has promised Blomkvist financial award and more importantly solid evidence against Wennersstrom who successfully sued Blomkvist and left him with nothing.

Blomkvist also learns that Wagner commissioned an extensive investigation of Blomkvist’s personal and professional life before acquiring his services, this was carried out by the other main character Lisbeth Salander. While Blomkvist has enjoyed a rather wealthy and prosperous life up to the libel case, the complete opposite can be said for Salander who has gone through several foster homes and been convicted of crime.

She is under the care of a legal guardian until he suffers a stroke and is replaced by lawyer Nils Bjurman who needless to say is not quite pleasant and it is the scenes that involve Salander and Bjurman that are the most uncomfortable and horrifying in the film and not for the faint of heart. (you have been warned!) Fincher goes back and forth between the two protagonists stories with Salander’s being more interesting partly due to her complex character and the stellar acting of Rooney Mara.

The girl with the Oxygen review.

The two characters finally come together about half way through the film when Salander has escaped the evil of Bjurman and Blomkvist has requested some help in the quest to solve the murder of Harriet and who better than the woman who thoroughly investigated his life and hacked his laptop. Salander accepts Blomkvist’s plea and the two start their extensive mission of solving the death of a girl thirty years ago leaving no stone unturned in the process.

The chemistry between the two characters is good and the story remains compelling throughout although one may get confused between all the characters that the two have investigated and forget who is who. The script isn’t superb or memorable by any stretch but I suppose they had to stay through to the book to an extent and it also does provide Salander with some funny and witty lines.

The film is two and a half hours long and its testament to the story that it keeps one interested until the end although the final parts of the film feel unnecessary and rushed compared to the rest of the movie. It’s probably an impossible task to stay completely true to the book and fit absolutely everything in and please all the fans, but David Fincher has created a dark, memorable, and compelling film that contains very strong scenes and fascinating characters

The film is let down to a degree by its complexity, its length, and by Daniel Craig who is quite bland and uninteresting throughout, although this could be the fault of the character. Despite the flaws of the movie this is definitely worth a watch as it is a very stylish, beautifully shot, and interesting crime thriller which will have you guessing till the end who did kill Harriet all those years ago.

Rating: 7/10

Seamus Dunne

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