The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)'s comments

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Rohit

I was a little disappointed as they decided to stick with the Swedish backdrop. Was hoping for more personal tweaks from Fincher. In the technical aspect, slightly better than the original movie. Btw, the book dominates both the films.

12 years 3 months ago

chrisgavin

It feels a bit like an unnecessary shot-for-shot remake of an already good film based on an even better book.

9 years 11 months ago

Pristine

Fantastic delivery from Fincher, once again. One of my favorite directors.

I was floored when I learned that the female lead was NOT in fact the same actress who plays Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish adaptation (of the book). Eerily similar, eerily chilling performances. I love both women for their brilliant and strong roles. For some reason I had the wrong notion of Noomi Rapace playing Lisbeth in both films, I'm not sure why but I think it's in part their physical similarity, the striking image I have of Lisbeth in my head and all those little details, mannerisms, etc.

One of the things which impresses me a lot is that Rooney Mara has such and impeccable accent as Lisbeth that I wouldn't be able to tell her apart from a native Swedish speaker even when I have Swedish ancestry myself and have conversational fluency in Swedish. I've even taken pride in having a very good ear for dialects, so this was one of those things which made the film even better.

I was a bit afraid of Daniel Craig ruining Mikael Blomkvist's character for me after seeing Michael Nyqvist nail it so nicely in the Swedish version, but no, great performances all around.

11 years 4 months ago

Reira-chan

I prefer the Swedish movies but I liked that the movie was more or less true to the book.
R.Mara's performance comparing with Noomi Rapace just lacks. Unfortunately, Mara didn't really become Lisbeth the way she is in the books and the way fans love her and she is supposed to be.

10 years 6 months ago

audiopile

There is no reason to see this if you've seen the Swedish version, unless of course you can't read.

12 years 1 month ago

frankqb

A film carrying elements of the crime thriller as well as mystery and drama set in Sweden that reminisces Fincher's previous crime-centric movies such as Se7en and Zodiac. The trademark Fincher lighting is omni-present throughout this work and provides an eery glow to the Nordic nights. The mystery of the plot seemed predictable - and, as the titular character says to another during the film - perfunctory. Scenes of graphic sexual violence pervade this film, nonetheless, it is a very well acted, very well made film - just difficult to watch at times (though I've been told they toned down the particularly graphic parts as compared to the book).

12 years 4 months ago

artschoolsuicide

I don't see how the original can be "a million times better" when both stories and their scenes are near identical. This film wasn't 'Hollywood-ized' at all. I saw the original first, and while I liked it a lot and it deserves props for coming first, this re-make (or, re-adaptation, whichever) is bred from the same cloth.

You're just being pretentious. Good movie, though.

11 years 9 months ago

iCheckFilms

Fincher is an awesome director.. I thought I had seen it all considering the fact that I had already watched the Swedish version. But, Fincher really made this movie with a lot of heart. The same is quite evident in each and every frame. Visually appealing and very stylistic.. The background score is the icing on the cake. Well done!!

12 years ago

MeatFist

unfocused, rambling garbage. Movie gives no reason (aside from rape) to care about any of the characters. Critical moments were almost comically rushed (quasi review in spoiler tag) spoiler

the dude in the family that hires daniel craig, the ENTIRE REASON for the actio of the movie, is onscreen for ~2 minutes; they dramatically undercover the nature of the family to the point where you just simply don't care and don't know why martin is such a bad dude except, oh yeah, the rape. Characters are flat robots - each scene of dialogue is two characters rapid fire exchanging lines with zero inflection. The movie begs you to take the stupidly talented, video game character robot female lead seriously, but then shoot her in the foot every scene by making her into the 'quirky comic relief' by jamming in one liners for cheap chuckles.

Thinking about how the screentime is apportioned is comical - nearly 30 minutes are spent onscreen PAGING THROUGH DOCUMENTS with zero explanation, where all that screentime could be used to explain, oh i don't know, the nature of the family (one 5 minute "royal tenenbaums" esque throwback), the relationship between daniel craig and the video game character (a few scattered 3 minute scenes of them looking into other eyes, or the female exercising her robotic paradoxical sexuality), what the fuck they're looking for, etc. However they don't do this so the viewer is left struggling to understand what is going on and why they should care about any of this. About 1:40 into the flick the big bad is dropped onscreen with about as much explanation as the rest of the events in the movie, Oh that guy? wait have we seen that guy before? oh he was in one scene explaining how we should give access to the files? what files? ok. now he's getting all rape-y so we should care.

Yeah, yeah... the STYLE OH MAN THE STYLE. If you call nearly infinite over the shoulder shots marinated in trent reznor's constant drone style. The sound editing seemed cool and edgy for the first ~30 minutes of the movie, but where this serves to keep pacing up and add tension to movies like The Social Network, here it just drags on and on and takes over the scene. Eventually, the movie is being driven more and more by this soundtrack to the point where a silent scene would absolutely be a blessing.

That brings up another point - the PACING. this ENTIRE movie is done at one pace. the ONLY time the action speeds up or slows down is during the unfortunate, unnecessary, indulgent rape scenes where we get to see just enough cruelty to shock us into paying attention for a few brief moments. The rest of the movie is this kind of quasi-rushed, 1.5x life speed pace that just gets BORING 2 hours in. The movie offers NO REASON why the characters are in a hurry, after all they are *ostensibly* researching a long cold case! The only time where they uncover something they shouldn't have leading to reprisal by the interested parties is the most comical scene in the movie. Daniel Craig is out wandering outside (they give no explanation other than just placing him out there) and gets almost shot in the head. He spends 2 seconds spinning in place like a confused child and then jogs calmly back to his house, the place where a killer would expect him to be, and then ABSOLUTELY FORGETS about being shot. I know that later they explain that he wasn't trying to kill him, but as far as daniel craig knows he just ALMOST DIES, but instead of being unspeakably terrified and yknow.. trying to save his life, he promptly forgets about it and the two leads git down to fucking.. for some reason.

I could go on and on with the little individual moments of idiocy, but this movie is just one long unfocused mess that i wish i could say tried to do too much with too little time, but that would be generous at the point where they straight waste 50% of the screentime patting themselves on the back with self-indulgent montages and music scenes.

Utter garbage.

12 years 1 month ago

Chikamaharry

The Swedish one has a better, more suiting soundtrack and a better pacing in the beginning. Other than that I thought they were kind of equally good. And I loved the Swedish one.

12 years 2 months ago

filmspaz

Loved it. Also, the trailer with the cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song has awesome editing. I miss trailers that are interesting and that don't give away the entire plot.

12 years 4 months ago

Earring72

Excellent mystery drama. Loved the book and Swedish movie. This nails it also with great eye for detail and true to the book, although the ending was slightly changed.

8 years 7 months ago

Siskoid

The David Fincher version (never seen the Swede original, or read the book), and I was pleasantly surprised and am looking for future installments in the trilogy. Based on Se7en and Zodiac, Fincher is a great choice to direct a dense mystery about a serial killer, and his acidic, grubby color palette certainly works for this Nordic tale of lost women. Daniel Craig is good as the journalist seeking professional redemption by investigating a notorious cold case in a remote part of the country, but it's Rooney Mara who steals the show as the eponymous tattooed girl, a brilliant investigator that comes in the most unusual of packages. We spend quite a good deal of time following her dark tale before it intersects with the journalist's, and it's equal measures harrowing and air-punchingly satisfying. She's on par with Sherlock Holmes, this one, and I'm very interested to see where both characters go next.

8 years 10 months ago

maxdbn

I really hope they'll remake the second and the third movie as well. This is an amazing movie.

9 years 10 months ago

IreneAdler

I liked the movie. Good actors, very dark atmosphere... and the general mood and look of the film are quite special and unique. Nice effects in the opening credits, too.

I cannot compare this movie to the other film on this story nor to the book; I don't know either (yet).

The only thing I was not entirely happy with was the fact that I suspected the "villain" pretty early on, though I was not sure. But there were other twists I did not expect and I still enjoyed watching it. (Plus, maybe I just had a lucky guess; I'm not sure how obvious it really is...)

10 years 2 months ago