16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gruesome Grueling Intrigue Swedish Style, July 23, 2010
Perhaps it is the current need to see that evil eventually consumes itself that make films like THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (AKA "Män som hatar kvinnor") so successful. Or it may be the posthumous fame given Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy (from which this film is 'Millennium: Part 1 - Men Who Hate Women') that has prepared an audience of believers. Whatever the reason this first installment (the other two installments have already been filmed and are ready for release) is being hailed as an epic masterpiece, a film that will go down in cinematic history as a classic. And for that reason you may want to see this current long exploration of the evil of man. But is it a masterpiece.....?
Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg adapted this book for the screen and the script is interpreted by director Niels Arden Oplev who has cast the many characters of the story with some excellent Swedish actors. By the end of this multi-twisted tale we are left satisfied with the balance of good over evil - or are we? After all we're only part way there and, as in the BOURNE SERIES in this country, subsequent parts to the story become only more bizarre - and exciting. At any rate, the story in brief deals with an investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) whose apparent loss of a case of libel against a wealthy corrupt corporate group results in his being chosen by an elderly but mentally vigorous gentleman Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to investigate a long buried case of the apparent murder of his niece -a deed Vanger is convinced is associated with his disgustingly morally corrupt family. Blomkvist is fascinated and begins his tedious examination of film and facts that seem to add clues as to the mystery surrounding Harriet Vanger's disappearance. Enter a punk rock appearing, pierced and tattooed young girl Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Repace) who ends up assisting Blomkvist in solving the conundrum. After some rather confusing bits of replay of Lisbeth's past and the revelation of her current situation with a guardian assigned to control her after her recent discharge from an institution, we are allowed to watch the discovery of 40 years of serial killings of young girls: the fact that they are all Jewish and that Vanger's family contains a number of ex-Nazis boils the pot. Much gore, visual exposure to violence and the results of violence flood the screen as the eventual discovery of the true history of Harriet Vanger is uncovered.
The film is two and a half hours long but seems much shorter because of the rapid fire sequencing by the director. Much praise has been heaped on Noomi Repace as Lisbeth and while she performs well, and looks bizarre, one wonders why all the hoopla. This is a good film of its kind, very well transforming a book into cinematic excess, and for those who crave gore and acts of depravity it will probably please. For film goers who prefer thinking to raw action this may not be the choice of a film du jour. In Swedish with subtitles and with English dubbing. Grady Harp, July 10
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Director Niels Arden Oplev strips Larsson's story down to its core: the hunt for Harriet Vanger, October 27, 2010
I'm a fervent and early fan of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. I would have flown to another city to watch this film if I had to. Luckily, I live in one of the country's best cities for art house cinema: Dallas. Yes, contrary to the expected stereotypes I always have to bat down when I tell out-of-town friends this fact: Dallas has a tremendous art house cinema culture. And, as testament to that, we got "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" very early. What a thrill for us.
I am not going to claim that the movie is better than the book. What makes the books so compelling are the monster-deep dives Larsson takes into varied areas like investigative journalism, corruption, hacking, mafia, governmental affairs, mafia-government connections, intelligence agencies, detectives..and a host of others. What makes the first book spin is its dual axes of investigative journalism and hacking, personified respectively by Larsson's two protagonists, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. In the movie, something's gotta give: there's just no earthly way director Niels Arden Oplev is going to be able to fit all of Larsson's work into a film of slightly less than three hours.
So what Oplev does is strip the story down to its core: the hunt for Harriet Vanger. It's this case that serendipitously brings Blomkvist and Salander together. In the process of the focus, we lose some of the flavor that is the hallmark of the book, most notably much of the investigative journalism as practiced inside the walls of Millennium magazine. Millennium's editor, Erika Berger, is but a footnote in the movie but a big part of the book. Likewise, little attention is given to the so-called "Wennerström Affair," the personal and professional downfall that befalls Mikael at the book's outset. Indeed, the first third of the book focuses mainly on these two elements of the tale.
Similarly, we lose out on some other aspects of Mikael's character. Mainly, his babe-magnetism. In the movie, he and Salander develop a sexual relationship. [Indeed, it's undertones of the memories of this relationship that drives much of books two and three.] But the movie has removed the sexual aspects from two of the other relationships Mikael has with female characters.
Despite all that, this movie lives and dies on one turn: it's ability to 'get it right' with its casting of Lisbeth. Over and over I would to my wife "Lisbeth better be good." And she'd tell me the same thing repeatedly. And others I know have the same mantra: don't mess with my ideal vision of Lisbeth. In that light, Noomi Rapace represents deliverance. She scored the essence of the character: we want Lisbeth to have that mix of smarts, hardened exterior, quirky beauty, ferocity and manic energy that drives the book. Ms. Rapace delivers all that in spades. She's maybe a little less elfin than the character described by Larsson, but other than that, she's the Lisbeth from my head.
I urge all fans of the book to see this enjoyable adaptation. [The producers had the smarts to make all three movies at once, so the other two are headed this way.] This is a Swedish story through and through. It deserves to be seen in Swedish. It's distressing to see US box office totals stalling at less than $10M. All that is going to do is fuel the drive to complete an insipid US version with some disheartening casting like Brad Pitt as Mikael and god knows who as Lisbeth. Whoever steps into that role, Noomi Rapace has already left her well behind at the starting line.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent, July 12, 2010
I like foreign films alot, and this does not disappoint. Very engaging story line, a thriller that is brilliantly executed. A particular scene involving the main girl and her parole officer gets disturbingly violent, but it has its place in the film. Highly recommended.
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