Review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) by Samuel B — 17 Jan 2012

I saw the new American version of the film about a week and a half ago and decide to see why so many critics like the Swedish version better. I decided to view them both and see which one is more close to the book and better in quality.

The Swedish version is close to the book in broad details and broad plot, but how the characters get from point to point is not right. This version is slowly paced, it is two and a half hours long and you feel it.

Noomi Rapace is very good as Lisbeth Salander but she is not the book's Lisbeth, which is a more interesting Lisbeth, which Mara captured very well in the new film. The American version done by David Fincher is better than the Swedish version in every way.

That is not to say that this is a bad film, far from it, this is quite a good movie. I would recommend Fincher's if you want to view one, both, if you wanted to decide which was better for yourself, and the book if you wanted a suspenseful, well-crafted story that neither of the films captures completely.