Movie Review

I saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo last night. I’ll admit I had pretty high expectations for it, and yet.. I liked it very much.

Fincher took a book that I absolutely adored and crafted a very faithful and beautiful adaptation of it. I’ll even go on to say that I thought it was better than the highly acclaimed Swedish version of the film (which I did not care for too much). You know it’s a Fincher film from the first scene, it’s just dark, dirty and yet so polished at the same time.

Rooney Mara’s transformation into Lisbeth Salander is brilliant and it’s impossible to take your eyes off of her in any given scene. She should receive a well deserved Oscar nod soon. I’ve never seen an actress do more with a deadpan expression than I have here. 

It goes without saying that the soundtrack was outstanding. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are for a second year running going to be frontrunners to score an Oscar (see what I did there?) for it as well. (I still think Drive’s soundtrack is as good if not better) I had a geek-out moment in theaters as one of the characters opened the door to greet Lisbeth and was wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt.

On the flip side, I still stand by my original opinion when it came to this and the original movie. I don’t think they should have been made. Fincher has history of pulling off the impossible and making movie’s better than their book counterparts (Fight Club) but this is not one of them. It often feels overlong (especially the ending, which has a Lord Of the Rings: Return of the King type feeling at the end [TEN FUCKING ENDINGS]). As with Lord of the Rings, the movie was just following the source material and they could not change too much about the ending without pissing people off, so it’s understandable. Still, this was done much more elegantly in book form.

I recommend this movie to pretty much anyone. I don’t think it’s hyperbole when I say that this is the worst year in movies that I have ever remembered. That alone makes me want to give this a really high review, but I’ll try and be objective. Read the book when you have the chance. 

8.5/10

9/10 (0.5 bump for sustained soundtrack boner)