REVIEW: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

My 2012 in films has finally got better... slightly.

I'm a bit late with this one, but I have finally seen David Fincher's remake of the Swedish film (and novel), 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'. It's edgy, it's hard-hitting but it also drags a little in places.

The plot basically revolves around Daniel Craig playing the character of Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced writer who is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the murder of his niece (which links with the serial killings of several other women from the 1960s.) Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth Salander, an awkward character, who is described as "mentally unstable" by many of the other characters in the film, and together they must solve the mystery of the serial killings.

Now, I'm going to be honest and say that, as of yet, I still have not seen the original Swedish film...

I know, I know. How could I possibly judge a remake without seeing the original film first? Well, I'm going to give it my best shot.

The film feels like it's a bit confused at times. It starts off with a Bond-esque opening title sequence complete with a thumping soundtrack and girls looking sultry covered in a jet-black liquid. But, from watching the film that followed, I guess Daniel Craig is also trying to prove he is not just good at being James Bond, and this film could never be a direct comparison to the Bond franchise. The final third act is a little bit too much like 'Mission: Impossible', which is a complete 180 turn from the style of the rest of the film that has preceded it. But what follows that title sequence is a film that mostly plods along slowly revealing small details at a time through character's investigations.

I'm including this, because after seeing the film I really don't understand why they used that title sequence, because it's the thing that really sets the first impressions of the film with the audience and it's a completely wrong first impression.

Which brings me to my next point. The character of Lisbeth was introduced to us as being "different" and also someone who is not of a sound mind. Mikael was also introduced to us as being a disgraced writer who is currently in the process of being sued because of a story he had written. However, for the first half hour or so of the film, Lisbeth and Mikael were not even brought together. Mikael was at least driving the plot forward with his investigations into the serial killings, however I was unsure why I was being subjected to watching Lisbeth being raped by her twisted accountant every time she wanted money from what she had been left behind, as it seemed to bring nothing to the plot.

When the two were finally brought together, it finally seemed like the film was going somewhere, but before that it felt like the film was being dragged down by the introduction of Lisbeth.

Having said all of this, I am still a big fan of David Fincher. I loved his work with 'Seven', 'Zodiac' and even 'Alien 3', and 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' has not changed any of that. He does really well with bringing a bleak and harsh feel to the film, which matched the subject matter of the plot really well (murder and rape). The only criticism I can think of Fincher is that sometimes I think he can be a bit too preoccupied with his characters over the plot. While the plot for this film was interesting and kept me thinking all the way through, the characters overshadowed it a bit. Like I said before, the introduction to Lisbeth with her accountant before she had anything to do with the investigation was overly long and the serial killings themselves never felt properly developed or interesting enough for me to care for the women involved.

I know many films are criticised for having style over substance and having paper-thin characters that no one cares about (see my review of 'The Darkest Hour'!) But Fincher seems to have the exact opposite as his problem - he is brilliant at introducing and developing his characters, but he now needs to start letting the plot of his films shine through a bit more.

After all, isn't the whole point of us going to the cinema is so that we are told a story?

*** 1/2 / *****