I'll begin by saying that I haven't read the "Millennium Series", nor have I seen the Scandinavian film adaptions. The only thing I know is that this film is the lovechild of uber-director David Fincher (of Fight Club and Seven fame) and Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List), and stars Mr. 007 himself, Daniel Craig. Oh! The sound track is by Trent Reznor too. So yeah, I was expecting a lot.
We open with what is essentially a Nine Inch Nails film clip set to a hideously remixed "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin - complete with over-dubbed vocals by that chick from The Knife.
I. Hated. It.
Probably because Trent Reznor sodomised one of my favourite songs...publicly. I found myself drifting off to that South Park episode where Steven Spielberg and George Lucas rape Indiana Jones. That being said, the soundtrack does set the tone of the film very well. It's all dark, brooding, and angry and really puts you in that "I hate all the things" mind frame. Score 1 to YOU Mr Reznor.
ANYWAY - let's move on to the actual film.
From what Wikipedia tells me (remember, I haven't read the books or seen the other movies), the American film adaption pretty much follows the Scandinavian one aside from 1 key plot point - which I won't reveal as it will completely fuck everything for you. It opens with lead character Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) losing a libel case against some big wig, which costs him his life savings. We also find out that he is banging his married co-editor, Erika Berger (Robin Wright). Presumably at the same time as the trial, a Lawyer is performing a background check on Blomkvist for his boss, and retired CEO of Vagner Industries, Henrik Vagner (Christopher Plummer). Enter Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), hacker extraordinairre, sufferer of all kinds of abuse, and really REALLY pissed off chick. It's at this point that we are treated to some back-ground information on Lisbeth - including not one, but TWO fairly graphic rape scenes. One of which involves a gigantic metal penis and a tattoo gun...Imaginations, do your worst! Anyway, Blomkvist goes off to Vagner's island to research the 40 year old disappearance/murder of Vagner's grand daughter, decides he needs a "research assistant", teams up with Salander, and BAM! We have the rest of the movie.
Rooney Mara is the definite stand out of the film, even surrounded by heavyweights like Daniel Craig, Stellan Skarsgaard and Christopher Plummer. She really throws herself into the role, and plays Lisbeth with the perfect mix of awkardness, angst, frailty and this brilliant underlying rage that just bubbles away under the surface. It's awesome to watch. Being a Fincher film, it's also beautifully shot, and really uses the Sweedish landscape to his advantage. The dulling down of colour also provides the right amount of "grittiness" needed as you're dragged through the murkiness of what is essentially a really nasty family history involving Nazis, lies and copious amounts of sex.
On the negative side, I found the blatant product placement really annoying. In a movie that has had most of the colour removed from the footage (there's a lot of blacks, greys, bleak landscapes and night time shooting), every now and then a BRIGHT FUCKING RED coke can or happy meal box will magically appear and really offend your delicate eye holes. Reznor also gets a few really good plugs in here and there too...
The accents are also a little irritating - I personally think that in a foreign set film, either everyone does the accent or no-one at all. You have Mara, Plummer and Skarsgaard using a Scandinavian type accent, yet Daniel Craig doesn't even bother. Maybe he felt that he already has a foreign accent in America's eyes, so no effort on his part was necessary. That, or his attempt at the accent was so incredibly shit that the directors decided to scrap it entirely.
The only other gripe I had was that sometimes the film felt a little clunky. While I realise that sex and abuse were major themes in the movie, it felt that every now and then a sex scene was thrown in to make sure that everyone was still paying attention. For example, when you are being introduced to Mara's character, there is a scene in a club where she hooks up with a chick, shoves her hand up her skirt and gets her angry girl lover on. I get that the character is bi-sexual, but I really didn't think that part of the movie was all that necessary. It was more like the director/screenwriter was screaming "HEY GUYS! THIS ONE'S FOR YOU LOL" at the audience.
All that aside, the performances were good - in Rooney Mara's case, fantastic. The dialogue was good. It was beautifully shot. It's definitely worth a peek, but is definitely not going to be the best to come from 2012.
I'ma give it 3.5 rubber chickens.
