Starring: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer

Directed by: David Fincher

Even though I picked this film as my No. 1 film of the year for 2011, I thought I would give this film a more detailed review to explain why. Here it is…

Plot/synopsis: A disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, teams up with a young computer hacker, named Lisbeth Salander, to search for a missing woman named Harriet, who has been gone for 40 years. 

A lot of people liked the Swedish version with Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth, I didn’t. The Swedish version had way too many problems. In the Swedish version, they made Mikael Blomkist, a kind, caring, good guy type of character when he wasn’t like that in the book. In the book, he had a don’t give a fuck, tough guy kind of attitude and wouldn’t give up until this missing woman is found. Plus, the Swedish version left too much out of the book and changed the story around.

This novel had a large following in Sweden and then slowly became more popular in the US. Finally, David Fincher, who is one of my favorite directors, did his take on the story. Honestly, I never was going to get into the Millennium series because all the internet buzz about the novel, got me into it. Like everyone else, I became addicted to the Lisbeth Salander character. This story deserves to get known in the US and David Fincher was the perfect director to do that job. I could see no other director doing this movie.

Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth in the Swedish version, was okay, but that wasn’t how the character was in this book. Noomi’s version, she wasn’t shy, and she was a little more evil and aggressive in this one. Rooney Mara’s version of the character stayed true to the novel. In the book, Lisbeth was described as very emotional and tough, but she also had heart and she can love people when she wanted it. Rooney Mara did a great job staying true to the character. I never liked Rooney Mara as an actress too much, but she showed her acting talent as Lisbeth in this one, that I gave her a little more respect.

Fincher’s version is more stylish and different. It’s a very dark movie and the pacing maybe a little slow, but you’ll become addicted to the story as soon as it starts and will keep you watching ’til the very end.

I was also impressed with Trent Reznor’s score for this film. His scores in movies are getting better and better. I didn’t want Trent to retire from Nine Inch Nails, but when he announced he was quitting Nine Inch Nails to start a career scoring movies, I’m beginning to think that what he did was a good thing. At first I didn’t think Trent had enough talent to score movies, but I thought wrong. He already won an Oscar for “The Social Network”, and here’s another great score for, “Dragon Tattoo”. He is very talented at composing music for movies.

I was most impressed on how faithful and true the movie was to the book. The movie matched every scene from the book perfectly. Didn’t really leave anything out at all. Movie adaptations from novels always had a problem with leaving stuff out and changing the story around, but that didn’t happen with this film. Even the rape scene and all the sex is in there as well.

Lisbeth Salander is one of the best movie characters in a long time. Could she easily line up with all the other great movie characters like the Terminator, Rambo, Clark Griswold, ET, Bill the Butcher, Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Indiana Jones? Yes, absolutely!!! This movie maybe dark, graphic and disturbing, but the Lisbeth Salander character wouldn’t matter if the controversial stuff wasn’t part of the story.

Stieg Larrson inspired this story, from the Pippi Longstocking children’s book, that’s where it all came from. Fincher’s version was pretty masterful and this is why I had chosen this film to be the best movie of the year. I think the story was made as a way to bring awareness to sexual violence against women and that stuff still happens to this day. Fincher did a phenomenal job, and I hope he directs the other two sequels to this movie, “Girl Who Played with Fire” and “Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”. I haven’t read “Hornet’s Nest” yet, the third book, I plan on buying that book for my Ipad soon.

I don’t think “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Fincher will be Oscar worthy for “Best Picture” but it be cool if it actually got the nomination.

Score for “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” = **** (4 stars as in excellent”)

Kev