The Parents texted me out of the blue today and asked me if I wanted to take in the afternoon matinee of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and not having anything better to do, I said yes. I enjoyed all three books and saw at least one of the Swedish film trilogy- possibly two, I can't quite remember off the top of my head and was interested in seeing just exactly what they were going to do with the much ballyhooed Hollywood adaptation of the trilogy.
Happily, they hit a home run. David Fincher (director of Seven) was perhaps the perfect choice to direct this movie and casting Daniel Craig as the enterprising journalist Mikael Blomqvist and Rooney Mara as the titular tattooed hacker, Lisbeth Salander both of whom are employed by a wealthy industrialist (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the disappearance of his niece four decades before. The secrets they unearth, however are beyond what either of them expected...
(No, I'm not going to dish on anything more than that- I know everyone and their mother has read the books but on the off chance that one of the three of you who read this thing haven't, you'll have to read/see the movie for yourself.)
The movie grabs you right away with an intense opening credits sequence paired with a creepy and must download cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song.' Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross followed up their eerie music for The Social Network with an entirely more appropriate and fitting score for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo that really stands out over the course of the movie. The cinematography is also noteworthy, I think: there's lot of winter colors- whites and greys, everything is muted, quiet- secret, appropriately enough.
Fincher stays true to the book and you almost don't notice that the movie itself clocks in at pretty close to 3 hours long. This isn't a movie that drags, in fact, it moves quick like it's on a mission and has a lot to pack in (it does) and only leaves a couple of things out- changing one probably fairly minor thing about the ending- but nothing that really detracts from the overall presentation of the movie.
Overall: **** out of **** Perfect casting, perfect director, perfect score- as it gleefully proclaims 'the feel bad movie of the holidays' it certainly delivers on that. (Added bonus: you'll never listen to Enya in quite the same way ever again.)
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