I saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on Saturday. I’m not sure I liked the movie that much. I was entertained, but I’m not sure most of you would be.
My basic take is that I thought it was a great adaptation of the book, but that as a stand-alone movie it wouldn’t be that engaging. Yes, I guess this would be a review summed up as “the book’s better” but I don’t want to be that dismissive.
The writers did a good job paring down the story to the core and I didn’t even notice the length of the film (I didn’t look at my watch once- and it’s a long movie). Pared down it’s a good & creepy mystery/thriller, but I felt that the pared-down version robbed some of the characters of their gravitas- especially the main bad guy, and one of the protaganists. Perhaps this was because I don’t speak Swedish though and needed to rely on the subtitles and missed some subtleties of the acting? I’m not sure.
So would I recommend the movie to you? Nope- not unless you’ve read the book and are curious about how the hell they whittled that tome down and still had something entertaining/interesting: The photo archives scenes, the old murders, and unfortunately, the sexual assaults. (btw, They even took some bits from the 2nd book)
Oh, and even thought I don’t think the book was “all that” – I did think it was entertaining and engaged me more than other popular fiction has lately.
One other thing – the main actress did a good job in the movie as her character’s pretty hard to make sympathetic in a visual medium. But . . . they could have been portrayed more “weird” to be closer to the source material. I’m not convinced this role is an award-winner for her even though she’s getting very popular now.
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