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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ****/5 Directed by: David Fincher Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard **spoiler alert! Warning!*** Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Craig) races against time to find a girl missing for over 40 years, aided by the mysterious hacker Lisbeth Salander (Mara). After massive critical acclaim with films such as Fight Club, Se7en and the more recent barnstorming Facebook biopic The Social Network,  Fincher can arguably be in the enviable position of getting to choose his projects. Nearly all his films have s visceral, violent edge and contain their fair share of drama. Following on from Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 Swedish hit thriller based on Stieg Larsson’s massively successful trilogy (original title Maen som hatar kvinnor, literally “men who hate women”), Fincher pulls off his self styled “feel bad movie” of the year. Daniel Craig is Mikael Blomqvist, taking a break from Bond to portray Larsson’s discredited journo who, slapped with a lawsuit, seeks some time away from the limelight. He is soon hired by wealthy industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to forge a biography of his family and to solve the riddle of his missing niece whom he suspects was murdered at the hand of his Nazi  siblings some 40 years prior. Craig eases into the role of everyman hack Blomqvist, foresaking his action hero image (and strict diet) to look more like a normal bloke than the buff superspy we’re used to seeing. Indeed his craggy features and deadpan delivery resemble those of Michael Nyqvist, who took on the same role in Oplev’s adaptation. The odd thing about this film, though, is that whilst all the other actors, British or otherwise, sport Swedish accents, Craig does not,  which singles him out - perhaps for the best, after his awful American accent in Tomb Raider. The film’s real star is of course Rooney Mara. She is positively electric as the punky goth Salander, who no doubt dropped a few pounds aswell as famously gained a few piercings to portray the edgy hacker. Salander had a troubled upbringing and, after a string of attacks and violent outbursts,  was made a Ward of the State and put in the care of the sadistic Bjurman (Yorik Van Wageningen). Salander also has some keen psychological skills and is drafted in to provide a profile of Blomqvist, putting them in direct contact as he profiles the increasingly dangerous Vanger clan. As they delve deeper and deeper into the family’s murky, Nazi related past (this film and indeed the books will tell you alot about Sweden’s social and political history), they face a race against time to reveal the film’s true villain. In a year littered with remakes and comic book adaptations, whilst Fincher’s version is another interpretation of Larsson’s book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is defintely up there among 2011’s top films! Zoom

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ****/5

Directed by: David Fincher

Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard

**spoiler alert! Warning!***

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Craig) races against time to find a girl missing for over 40 years, aided by the mysterious hacker Lisbeth Salander (Mara).

After massive critical acclaim with films such as Fight Club, Se7en and the more recent barnstorming Facebook biopic The Social Network,  Fincher can arguably be in the enviable position of getting to choose his projects. Nearly all his films have s visceral, violent edge and contain their fair share of drama. Following on from Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 Swedish hit thriller based on Stieg Larsson’s massively successful trilogy (original title Maen som hatar kvinnor, literally “men who hate women”), Fincher pulls off his self styled “feel bad movie” of the year. Daniel Craig is Mikael Blomqvist, taking a break from Bond to portray Larsson’s discredited journo who, slapped with a lawsuit, seeks some time away from the limelight. He is soon hired by wealthy industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to forge a biography of his family and to solve the riddle of his missing niece whom he suspects was murdered at the hand of his Nazi  siblings some 40 years prior. Craig eases into the role of everyman hack Blomqvist, foresaking his action hero image (and strict diet) to look more like a normal bloke than the buff superspy we’re used to seeing. Indeed his craggy features and deadpan delivery resemble those of Michael Nyqvist, who took on the same role in Oplev’s adaptation. The odd thing about this film, though, is that whilst all the other actors, British or otherwise, sport Swedish accents, Craig does not,  which singles him out - perhaps for the best, after his awful American accent in Tomb Raider.

The film’s real star is of course Rooney Mara. She is positively electric as the punky goth Salander, who no doubt dropped a few pounds aswell as famously gained a few piercings to portray the edgy hacker. Salander had a troubled upbringing and, after a string of attacks and violent outbursts,  was made a Ward of the State and put in the care of the sadistic Bjurman (Yorik Van Wageningen). Salander also has some keen psychological skills and is drafted in to provide a profile of Blomqvist, putting them in direct contact as he profiles the increasingly dangerous Vanger clan. As they delve deeper and deeper into the family’s murky, Nazi related past (this film and indeed the books will tell you alot about Sweden’s social and political history), they face a race against time to reveal the film’s true villain.

In a year littered with remakes and comic book adaptations, whilst Fincher’s version is another interpretation of Larsson’s book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is defintely up there among 2011’s top films!


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