Review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) by Fabien R — 18 Jan 2012

This won't be a comparison review as I have not had chance to see the Hollywood remake of this film but when I have I will do a comparison article saying which on I prefer overall. Just to make sure before you start reading this whole review this is for the original Swedish version.

The film centres on a young woman called Lisbeth Salander that hacks computers for a living and the journalist Mikael Blomkvist who works for the famous Millennium magazine. Mikael and Lisbeth join forces to hunt down a killer of women.

This is an adaptation of Stieg Larsson's best selling novel, which I have never actually read, but I feel as though this has the background of a very typical crime novel. The genre of crime is always one of the hardest to do effectively, it is very hard to keep the viewer entertained and to keep them guessing through the whole film. This film manages to hold your attention for the full two and a half hours and it keeps you guessing right to the end.

The acting in this film is superb; Noomi Repace is phenomenal throughout; she has some very twisted, disturbing scenes that must be very difficult to portray and she pulls it off brilliantly. Her character is incredibly dark and misshapen which fits perfectly with the style of the rest of the film.

There is one thing I don't really like about this film and that is the story; it feels as though we have seen it all before. I was really let down by the ending and I thought there were quite a few holes in the story; that may because the film had to miss out a lot of detail from the book.

The world the film is set in is a dark twisted take on reality showing the more sinister side to the human race. There are some very disturbing scenes of rape and violence so if you are a bit squeamish then you may want to give this one a miss.

This movie is beautifully directed making to movie look superb and stylish and it is definitely worth your time. Even if the plot is a little flawed and the relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth is lacking development but you should definitely check it out before you see the Hollywood remake.