Here are my thoughts on the film!
I hope that you enjoy it.
A very Happy New Year to you all.
Dom
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Borrowing slightly from the James Bond film franchise and its artsy introductions, the opening sequence to David Fincher's take on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo features wires made up of an oily substance moving about wildly, meshing with one-another and reforming. This is fittingly soundtracked by experimental rock music's finest Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Karen O with their excellent cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'. This opening is worth mentioning because it provides some insight into the dark world of violence, sex and cyber-crime that Fincher has created as a much sleeker, yet equally as evocative answer to his other mentally stimulating and musically-driven work on Fight Club and The Social Network.
Many fans of the record-breaking 2009 movie adaption (directed by Niels Arden Oplev) will note the various similarities within Fincher’s version to the Swedish film in terms of mood and tone, but lovers of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy (featuring The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and that last film will doubtless be relieved by how true this new version is to its roots, with various parts of the production being shot in Sweden. Larsson's book also heavily examines the effects of sexual violence, particularly upon anti-hero Lisbeth Salander, and as one might expect (you've seen Se7en right?), Fincher does not shy away from this uncomfortable, yet completely essential aspect.
Daniel Craig gives a convincing performance as disgraced journo Mikael Blomkvist who has been enlisted to uncover the secrets of a wealthy and misogynistic old family (the Vangers) with a questionable past of lies, debauchery and Nazism. While Craig's performance in this certainly deserves special mention, (this cool and collected demeanour does rival the impact of his Bond persona), Rooney Mara steals it as the punky computer hacking powerhouse Salander. Mara is more suited for this role than Noomi Rapace who played Salander in 2009 – there's an aggressive and damaged quality to the former's character that gifts this film its heart and soul. Through this, Mara effortlessly crafts a personality that will impress many, simply because of her strength and “cheeky” intelligence.
For Fincher, it's business as usual. A plot centring around the search for a unapologetic serial killer is his well-established comfort zone, and it allows him to go to great lengths to grab at, and hook attention (see the brutal encounters between Salander and her corrupt legal guardian Nils Bjurman [played expertly by Yorick van Wageningen], or the high-speed chase scene between Salander and Martin Vanger). Indeed, this is helped in no small part by Reznor and Ross' insidious score which is used by the director (much like in The Social Network) to indicate key points of discovery and enhance the ever-present element of tension.
This adaption is worth viewing in celebration of its non-stereotypical take on the whodunit-style mystery that keeps those new to the story intrigued through over two-and-a-half hours of viewing time. Now, it will be interesting to see how the other two books in this series will be interpreted.
I hope that you enjoy it.
A very Happy New Year to you all.
Dom
---
Borrowing slightly from the James Bond film franchise and its artsy introductions, the opening sequence to David Fincher's take on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo features wires made up of an oily substance moving about wildly, meshing with one-another and reforming. This is fittingly soundtracked by experimental rock music's finest Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Karen O with their excellent cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'. This opening is worth mentioning because it provides some insight into the dark world of violence, sex and cyber-crime that Fincher has created as a much sleeker, yet equally as evocative answer to his other mentally stimulating and musically-driven work on Fight Club and The Social Network.
Many fans of the record-breaking 2009 movie adaption (directed by Niels Arden Oplev) will note the various similarities within Fincher’s version to the Swedish film in terms of mood and tone, but lovers of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy (featuring The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) and that last film will doubtless be relieved by how true this new version is to its roots, with various parts of the production being shot in Sweden. Larsson's book also heavily examines the effects of sexual violence, particularly upon anti-hero Lisbeth Salander, and as one might expect (you've seen Se7en right?), Fincher does not shy away from this uncomfortable, yet completely essential aspect.
Daniel Craig gives a convincing performance as disgraced journo Mikael Blomkvist who has been enlisted to uncover the secrets of a wealthy and misogynistic old family (the Vangers) with a questionable past of lies, debauchery and Nazism. While Craig's performance in this certainly deserves special mention, (this cool and collected demeanour does rival the impact of his Bond persona), Rooney Mara steals it as the punky computer hacking powerhouse Salander. Mara is more suited for this role than Noomi Rapace who played Salander in 2009 – there's an aggressive and damaged quality to the former's character that gifts this film its heart and soul. Through this, Mara effortlessly crafts a personality that will impress many, simply because of her strength and “cheeky” intelligence.
For Fincher, it's business as usual. A plot centring around the search for a unapologetic serial killer is his well-established comfort zone, and it allows him to go to great lengths to grab at, and hook attention (see the brutal encounters between Salander and her corrupt legal guardian Nils Bjurman [played expertly by Yorick van Wageningen], or the high-speed chase scene between Salander and Martin Vanger). Indeed, this is helped in no small part by Reznor and Ross' insidious score which is used by the director (much like in The Social Network) to indicate key points of discovery and enhance the ever-present element of tension.
This adaption is worth viewing in celebration of its non-stereotypical take on the whodunit-style mystery that keeps those new to the story intrigued through over two-and-a-half hours of viewing time. Now, it will be interesting to see how the other two books in this series will be interpreted.
