Movie Review: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Jan 12th, 2012 in Adapted from a Book, Thriller | 0 comments

What Critics Had To Say About The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 2011 Movie

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie brought to life the punches and angst of Steig Larsson‘s book. Starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo brought to life the story of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. Critics and audience were impressed by this film’s authenticity and storyline.

Here’s a movie review from What’s On TV:

“With Fight Club director David Fincher at the helm, it was clear that Hollywood wasn’t going to pull any punches in bringing Stieg Larsson’s bestselling crime thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to the screen.

Sure enough, Fincher’s film is dark and twisted, bleak and brutal: everything the book’s fans would want. And it’s not just the story’s mood that’s right. The casting is spot on, too.

Rooney Mara doesn’t eclipse Noomi Rapace’s iconic performance as punk-Goth computer hacker Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish film, but she nails the character’s spiky complexity. Her tiny frame adorned with multiple tattoos and piercings, Mara’s emotionally damaged Salander is both vulnerable waif and ferocious avenger.

Co-star Daniel Craig, as crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, proves a worthy foil, with enough brooding masculine charisma to make up for the fact that he alone among the cast doesn’t attempt a Swedish accent.

To begin with, the film keeps the pair apart as it establishes their characters and sets up the story’s labyrinthine plot, which revolves around the 40-year-old disappearance of a teenage girl from an island owned by a wealthy, seriously warped Swedish family.

Blomkvist, in disgrace after losing a libel case, gets hired to solve the mystery by the girl’s great-uncle, elderly recluse Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), and he in turn hires antisocial genius Salander to assist him.

As compelling as Salander and Blomkvist are on their own, it’s when they come together that the film truly takes off. And as they begin unravelling a skein of seemingly baffling clues, chillingly exposing a series of appalling crimes against women, the film becomes as gripping on screen as it was on the page.”

You can find the full article at whatsontv.co.uk

Aside from this movie review, Joe Morgenstern also gave his statement with regards to his personal experience with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Movie:

“Let’s cut to the crucial question: How is the new girl in David Fincher’s version of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”? She’s fine, thank you very much. That is to say, Rooney Mara looks just as bizarre as Noomi Rapace did in the role of Lisbeth Salander, the poster girl for punk and spunk in the Swedish-language trilogy. And she cuts just as striking a figure riding a motorcycle, surfing the web or taking and giving terrible punishment. But there’s a crucial difference. Lisbeth 1 was black-light incandescence, burning with focused anger. Lisbeth 2 is recessive, haunted, sometimes bummed and occasionally blank but clearly alienated from the vile world in which Lisbeth 1 fiercely claimed her place. That may leave fans of the original feeling alienated too, not only from Lisbeth but from the spectacle of a remake that has much to recommend it—high-end craftsmanship, a singular heroine, a labyrinthine mystery, an intriguing milieu—yet lacks a vital spark.”

The complete article can be found at the Wall Street Journal Film Review.

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Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.