“Lie Still. I’ve never done this before. There will be blood.”
An eyebrow raising line of dialogue delivered in a no-nonsense, staccato fashion, by the titualar Girl to a man who hates women. If this statement is taken as a comment on David Fincher doing an American adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s insanely popular novel, it is kind of a lie on both counts. Lisbeth Salander has indeed done this before (in print of course, and also on celluloid in Swedish), and between Seven and Zodiac, and The Social Network so has David Fincher – and as the latter goes, much better. Having recently watched both Chinatown and Vertigo, any hope for a richly textured and nuanced modern noir, a building of something more than plotting and franchise building, was dashed after the end credits pop up. Expectations are a bitch.
With the MGM Lion mutely roaring and a swanky abstract credit sequence (think H.P. Lovecraft bathed in liquid crude) you might be tempted to think of the Hollywood production of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as some sort of grim James Bond in purgatory. Daniel Craig in the lead, sporting the finest in European apparel only underscores this; at this point in human history, a smart phone and a macbook petty much make us all super-spies. Hell, that credit sequence probably cost more than the entire Swedish film trilogy. Given the money and thin subject material, David Fincher (who, let’s face it, can do this stuff in his sleep at this point) serves a mighty exercise in craft that amounts to little in the way of depth, rather serving as one-for-them-one-for-me stylistic experimentation. A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That is not to say that Dragon Tattoo is Fincher’s Oceans 12, but it is at least his Solaris.
The central murder-mystery featuring rich Swedish eccentrics, The private Vanger clan who cluster on their their own private island, but never talk to one another. The corporate tycoons, Nazi shut-ins, and a serial killers of women here seems to provide little more than a truculent back-drop for the wannabe relationship between the titular cyber-punk gal – make no mistake, Rooney Mara is equally as convincing as Noomi Rapace – and disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist who spend their time doing the nuts and bolts of investigation. The dialogue is fast and perfunctory, a oneupmanship with the Shakespeare-on-speed delivery in The Social Network. The sound design is assaultive and occasionally abstract with Trent Reznor’s score calling attention to itself, often. Despite the momentum of everything thing, Daniel Craig still offers new levels of vacant staring and mumbly line deliveries. He may have the lion-share of screen time, but it’s Mara’s Lisbeth Salandar that drives film more than anything. But lets be crystal clear: That they fuck is far more important than whether or not they solve the mystery of a wealthy patriarch’s missing niece and a dozen or more murdered women. That they form a lasting intimate relationship seems to be the primary goal of an otherwise needlessly protracted denouement. Needless until you realize that Lisbeth’s pining for Blomkvist and a relationship of some kind is what the story is really about, the rest filler. Keeping this in mind, Lisbeth is only 7 years older than Blomkvist’s daughter, a point lost on the screenplay (or on the cutting room floor) as the daughter in the film only to provide a silly Bible clue (Eureka!) and then is discarded in favour of Blomkvist fucking his boss (Robin Wright Penn) at his convenience.
Protracted character introductions consist of vaguely engaging corporate and media shenanigans around Mikael Blomkvist (serendipity alert: News of the World phone tapping is treated without the slightest whiff of interest or scandal) and Lisbeth’s emotional/sexual issues with her previous and new government handlers (there will be anal blood, fair warning) and corporate bosses. The characters, either the main ones, or the plethora of single-scene supporting characters, for all the films exposition, never feel like people with sustainable histories. But hell, everything is handsome on screen – like those flowers matted in glass frames that come as birthday presents to mock and taunt the elder Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Lisbeth’s angry “Fuck-you You Fucking Fuck” T-Shirt sporting hacker comes the closest, if only because she has some semblance of emotional longings (her knack for drug-fueled Gothic lesbian sex notwithstanding). Just when you think the character may be getting somewhere, there is the niggling in the back of the brain that this whole thing is just sexist wish fulfillment. Longings or not, Lisbeth seems primarily to exist to either offer her brains and skill to help Blomkvist, or have sex with him, or bail him out of a tight spot, or patch him up if he is bleeding. If she still comes across like more of a person it is because of her angsty posturing exists as a funhouse mirror of his disinterest in her other than as a tool. She’s a lip-pierced, bleached ‘browed Marvel superhero who can rock a blonde wig, and hide her tats when necessary, to embezzle billions of dollars in offshore accounts while sipping a latte.
Maybe being only skin deep is perhaps the goal. To thrust fans and novitiates of The Millennium Trilogy into a lurid movie-land of super-journos, super-hackers and vague boogeymen with basement torture chambers that might make Patrick Bateman wince. Tattoo‘s Swedish Psycho is so ill essayed (not the actors fault, this particular thespian is magnificent, as always) as to be almost completely irrelevant. It’s about the sex, not the crime. Speaking of American Psycho, Tattoo does have some expertly executed set-pieces, including one structured around Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” that is certainly the films “Sussudio” moment. Equally impressive is a scuffle in a subway station involving an escalator and duffle bag and a shitload of loud foley work. It’s a showcase of the directors penchant for terse, boiled-down-to-the-essence on screen action. Mercifully, Fincher doesn’t feel the need to flash grotesque photos of slaughtered women every 10 minutes, as was the case with Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 version of the film. He handles all the research through laptops photo galleries, Google, corporate libraries and police archives with, well, the panache of someone who already made the far superior Zodiac. The movie is assembled with fragments of fragments, not just the scenes, but the expertise of the director. I am assuming this is by design as it will most likely delight readers (and enthusiasts of auteur theory) who can unconsciously fill in the banks. It is made explicitly visual in how curiosity (or simply bad luck?) killed the cat, arguably – and curiously – the film’s most gristly image. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo strings you along for 2 hours and 45 minutes dressed in the finest of cinematic and production design frippery, but has the lasting spiritual enrichment of one of Lisbeth’s ubiquitous Happy Meals or 30 second Ramen.
I suppose than, that these mega bestselling book-to-film franchises are not going to direct themselves, and we have got two more novels/films to go that demand A-level craftsmen and acting talent. Hopefully, Mr. Fincher has had his fill of shooting classical and modern Swedish architecture and isn’t going to spend his time farting around with this material any further. Once was enough, with or without blood.
A waste of Fincher’s time. Which is what I said from the moment I heard the news that this was being made. Again. He could be out there making something original and awesome but instead decided to retread an insanely popular series just what, 2 years(?) after the fairly popular film adaptation wrapped up.
This is Let Me In and Funny Games all over again. That’s two years of possible Fincher awesomeness we’ll never get back.
Having read some glowing reviews from other film people online I can not wait to see it for myself after reading this.
I’m convinced the glowing reviews are by people who don’t want to be the one guy to come out and criticize (God forbid) a David Fincher movie that “really takes chances.” Not Kurt Halfyard though. Bring em on.
I don’t know at least from this one http://tinyurl.com/6u5fuwq it seems that both reviews are touching on the same things just framed as positives or negatives leads me to believe this film may just be one that splits people as well.
It’s a fine one-time watch, calories only, no nutrition on this one. And in terms of my ‘style for styles sake’ I prefer a bit of brevity (a la Drive or Hanna) than this kind of bloated 2h45min exercise in style.
Hey don’t get me wrong, this film is 10x better than the Swedish one. I didn’t like the Swedish one either.
I guess I’m one of the lucky few that will really get to enjoy this film solely as a Fincher film. I have not read any of the books or seen any of the movies.
I think as for the reviews those who have a history with the material will probably be bored with it or have a negative view. And those who view it as it own thing will probably enjoy it. It’s very simple.
He should have done Rendezvous with Rama instead of this remake.
A-fucking men! Antho!
Oh Antho42, I so aggggreeeeeeeee!
Brittany: A Challenge for you when you are watching it: Is the Island mystery engaging or perfunctory? Come back to me then. It may be because I knew beat by beat plotwise what was going to happen, but outside of plot (and style experimentation), this movie doesn’t have much, thus making me already familiar with the material a bit of a handicap. (SEE ALSO: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN)
Which is what angers me a bit about this movie Kurt. Whether you liked the original movie or not, you saw it. This movie just feels like a studio making a movie that they know will be successful because they’re aiming at all of the people out there (and there are a lot of them) that can’t be bothered with subtitles. Then they grabbed one of the most prolific director’s of our time and had him do it when he could be out there making Light of Other Days or RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA(!). But no, we have to make a dumbed-down version for people who can’t read. Stamp Fincher’s name on it and people will go.
Not to get into this again, but I’m surprised Kurt didn’t like the original. It so straight up his alley. Dark, good mystery, great style, interesting characters and of course scratchy European. And yeah Jandy, it totally looks like a Fincher film. I wonder if seeing it in the theater (especially in a festival atmosphere would change the mind a bit?).
The funniest thing about Fincher doing this is the Swedish version already felt like it was imitating Fincher. I wrote that in my notebook as soon as I got out of the screening of the Swedish film. It was almost inevitable he’d get tapped for this, but yeah, he could totally do it in his sleep. If it’s stylish, I’ll probably still like it – I’m already enjoying what I’ve heard of the score. We’ll see, though. I got almost nothing out of Let Me In.
The SOLARIS comment above in the review is no accident. Fincher de-emphasizes the mystery in favour of the ‘relationship’ element in the story.
I didn’t like the original that much because it felt hollow, like a bad attempt at mimicking David Fincher (Seven/Zodiac). While Fincher certainly does Fincher better (!) the material doesn’t have the interesting depth that Seven/FightClub/Zodiac has. It’s not the director, it’s the material.
I loved Let Me In, I suspect I will love this as well. Kurt be damned!
I hate to be the one to burst Kurt’s bubble (Not Really). But Fincher’s next film is probably going to be 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea aka another remake.
I’m down with a Fincher remake of 20k leagues. That’s a film that probably needs an update. That will be a fun story I think with Fincher behind the “helm.”
I’m surprised as well, but good on you Kurt for not just going with the crowd and being honest.
@Andrew – I don’t think it’s a waste of time for him to do it, although this is, of course, without me having seen the movie yet. And for the record I LOVED both Let Me In and Funny Games, thought they were both superior to their respective originals.
I enjoyed the Swedish films but I didn’t think they were anything special. I was hoping Fincher could turn the trashy but engrossing story into something great, but by the sounds of Kurt’s review it’s more of the same.
20K Leagues – bizarre next move, but I’m intrigued.
Ooooo Rendezvous with Rama. We can only hope.
Funnily enough I bought Rendezvous With Rama recently in a big sci-fi novel buying binge. It sounds like a lot of you are fans. How ‘hard sci-fi’ is it? Is it still an entertaining/engaging read as I’m wondering what to start next from my collection and I’m not in the mood for anything that might be a bit of a slog?
I find Arthur C. Clarke’s work to be pretty hard on the science but this is, for me, the most accessible of his works. And I’ve only ever read the first book in the series. Not sure how the others hold up.
First of all. Hilarious that a review on Dragon Tattoo has (d)evolved into talk abut Rama.
Second, I wouldn’t go so far as to say Rama is fluff, but for Clarke it comes damn close. I read Rama II and found it pretty decent as well. Got halfway through Garden of Rama and quit. I don’t remember why. My guess is that it had lost its lustre and was probably really boring. But I was like 15 years old at the time.
I really really really like Alastair Reynolds who mixes Hard Sci Fi and Pulp Action tropes. Would love, love, love to see a David Fincher directed $300M version of Chasm City.
Rendezvous With Rama is one of my all time favourite books – it instills wonder with just about every chapter, is hard sci-fi from the point of view of it all sounding very plausible and following laws of physics and is an absolute page-turner. Each succeeding Rama book drops down a level in interest, but they were all pretty decent reads (though by the end it gets a little too mystical and such for my liking).
I think you’ll dig it David.
Mike, I also thought “Let Me In” was pretty dang spiffy (even though I was highly skeptical going in). I was in the “why?” camp on Dragon Tattoo initially but got a bit more psyched with the trailer (which I shouldn’t do, but can’t help sometimes). Kurt’s review has tempered that enthusiasm somewhat, which might actually help…
Comparing Hanna positively in the same sentence as Drive is means enough for peas thrown at Kurt’s head at the next blogger meetup
I personally loved the Swedish version, which makes me all the more hateful of another version being made purely because of language.
That said, I’ll still probably check out the new version (purely for comparison purposes).
I will take your peas and raise you some capers.
Is it really a remake if the format of distribution, creation and release is different?
I mean the two Vampire movies I get because they were both movies. This is a book a made for TV thing and a MOVIE
Its like saying the SCI FI adaptation of Dune(so terrible) is a remake of the David Lynch film and not the book.
I am so excited about 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Fincher, to me that is a perfect fit. A lot of childhood nostalgia for the film, which doesn’t really hold up anymore and needs a reboot.
Rick, while it’s true that the second two films were filmed initially for a miniseries, the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo adaptation was released theatrically first (and was then re-edited for inclusion in the miniseries). Either way, that doesn’t matter in North America, where all three were released theatrically (which is how I saw them).
Correction: After checking release dates, I found out that the entire trilogy was released theatrically in Sweden first and then re-editted into the TV mini-series, which came after.
Also, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the most viewed film ever in Sweden (with over 1 million admissions), so enough of this talk saying it’s not really a movie.
The remake vs. adaptation question is a valid one, though. All three properties Rick brought up were books first, and hence any film version is a literary adaptation. It’s only the fact that a) the second version is so chronologically close to the first version and b) the first version was well-loved and critically acclaimed and perhaps c) the adaptations make many of the same choices that tags them as remakes instead of adaptations. We don’t think of 2011′s Jane Eyre as a remake, even though that property has been adapted to film before. It’s an interesting conundrum that defies easy logic.
An interesting feminist DragonTattoo (Fincher) perspective that I agree with in much of Fincher’s work (Alien3/PanicRoom), but disagree with in regards to the film at hand. http://www.awardsdaily.com/2011/12/finchers-dragon-tattoo-what-it-feels-like-for-a-girl/
we are completely on board with this, her conclusions of the nuances of the Fincher film:
“By the end of the film, the whole point of it comes to life. This is a movie about a girl, all right. Her hard shell finally cut through, as she encounters the one man who cares enough about her to bring her a sandwich for breakfast and stand ten feet back from her, never reaching out his hand so much as to shake hers. As Blomkvist, sweetly rendered irresistible by Daniel Craig, keeps his distance from Salander, so does the girl with the dragon tattoo want to move closer to him. To fall in love is to have the most important layer pulled back, and the softest of flesh exposed. It’s a risk Salander has avoided for her own sake for most of her life. But to keep all surfaces protected means to repel everything that comes softly near. And that is an even bigger risk: to never have the sweetest thing.”
But really, as an act of feminism isn’t Salandar in the film merely catering to the whims of Blomkvist without getting any of the actual rewards? Voluntary super-sexy slavery? (Blomkvist during one sex scene is about as occupied and indulging towards Lisbeth as Swarengen in Deadwood was to his servicing whores) Is this the new feminism?
I really hope Fincher isn’t stuck doing this trilogy for the next few years. Though I enjoyed his version of Dragon Tattoo, I rather have something original.
http://collider.com/girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-sequels-shooting-back-to-back/132975/
So saw this last night. Just felt like I was watching the same movie again for the fourth time. Except now everyone inexplicably speaks English; some with accents, some not, and they occasionally throw in a Swedish word here and there. Great score. Digital snow.
WTF is Robin Wright Penn doing here? Is she from Transylvania or London or Sweden or the United States?
Just saw it last night and absolutely loved it. I think not knowing every twist and turn really helped this movie for me.
Nice review Kurt. Here’s mine: http://www.thesubstream.com/article-review-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo.html
Saw it today. The film definitely has a much slower pace than the Swedish film (which I rewatched yesterday) and it really tried my patience at times. It’s almost hard to comprehend that this film is only 8 minutes longer than the previous version (since it feels like more)
I was expecting to hate Rooney Mara’s performance, but she grew on my over the course of the film. She ended up probably being the best thing about a film that, in the end, underwhelmed me.
I liked it about as much as the Swedish version.
The Swedish version is leaner, grittier in its competent cheapness, feels authentic, and Noomi Rapace to me, feels like she IS Lisbeth, not an actress. It’s also shorter and doesn’t have that final segment nearly as drawn out.
Fincher’s is far more cinematic, and doesn’t have the benefit of the mystery being new to me. But that said, he does a very good job at making technology exciting, and making the details interesting. And he has a better cast of actors overall. Rooney Mara is awesome as well and possibly even overrated… but there’s that original there that probably undermines the work she put it in, just by existing, much as Let Me In kind of seems less impressive because you have a solid if not better comparison right there.
But that last 20 minutes… I just don’t care. It left me cold and walking out of the theater less impressed than I would have been if that had been sped up some more. I’m not sure Fincher did anything to earn that extra time to ramp up her character.
So I don’t know. I don’t think it was a waste for Fincher to do this. I actually prefer this to Seven. I like Fincher’s latter work to his early stuff. But that’s me.
Agreed about the drawn out ending Goon. I thought it was needless, boring exposition. On the Cinecast regarding this matter I was downvoted and told I was confused. When in fact, the only people that are confused are the ones that need all that stuff spelled out for them. I liked the “aha!” moment at the end of the Swedish version rather than watching Lisbeth go from bank to bank and looking pretty.
Does anyone think that the fact the movie opens with a cover song is intentionally some meta reference to another GWTDT being out there? or is that reading mayhaps a bit much.
In my review for my blog, I dubbed the extended ending the “post climax espionage plot”
it’s not confusing at all, you can basically tell what she did in just a minutes time.