The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

My slight disappointment stems paradoxically from my ignorance of the book, which is obviously not very suitable for filming. This is because the quantity of names becomes annoying after a while, although otherwise, Fincher does great work as usual in all other components, so we do get a great soundtrack (but this time it's too "off the charts" for the Oscar race:)), excellent cinematography (which underlines the pedantic narrative), and precise actors. But I'll definitely go see it again. The fact that the gardener is the murderer will soon dawn on even the slower folks, but that's beside the point. How we get there is the first priority this time. Fincher is the best director alive right now, period. (16/01/2012)

If I compare the procedural ritual Zodiac and this sexless genre trap, it's clear that Fincher was doing a studio job. Nordic detectives are not cool. They're really weird. This version was unable to capture this at all. The investigation is secondary here, and what makes it twice as bad given that it’s Fincher - any pathological charge slips away here. The fact that the killer listens to Enya is a weak band-aid. Anal sex in the form in which the film offers it can really outrage only unbroken Catholics, and there were more places where I searched in vain for Fincher's contribution. Personally, I suffered through most of the film - and something tells me that if you don't know the book, some of the things won't make sense (for a detective story, the motivations of the killer and the detective are quite crucial, which are hardly found here). (12/01/2012)

David Fincher is one of the best directors alive and it’s not surprising that he’s made an excellent film. The differences between the American and Swedish adaptations are enough to invalidate the argument of a pointless remake, but I’m still unable to convince myself that I should be satisfied with this new version, I’m not, even though the quality is clear. In short, watching a whodunit when you know who the killer is, is as much fun as going to the sea to watch dolphins, even though you know that dolphins don’t live in that sea. You can enjoy the fresh sea breeze, work on a tan, have a cold alcoholic beverage… but you still know that you won’t see any dolphins. (13/01/2012)

It’s not the Fincher masterpiece that we are used to, but book adaptations are never easy to (this time I didn’t have time to read it beforehand). The middle part with the investigation itself runs very smoothly, but both the introduction and the conclusion, despite being excellent, are a little cumbersome. The atmosphere of the frozen Swedish planes is nicely illustrated, precise direction as always and the hypnotic music of Trent Reznor. The cast is A-grade. Both Craig and Mara are perfect. A well-thought out, tense story. But don’t expect it to be the event of the winter. (15/01/2012)

It is incredibly difficult to express myself about this movie when I saw the original one, Swedish. He actually managed to show me that David Fincher is an excellent director, that he can choose good music that can give the film a dimension, that he can choose excellent actors, who can excellently embody the characters from the book and moreover... can excellently say a few Swedish words like "takk" or "skol" or can speak English with such a completely natural Scandinavian accent. Well, the actors. Actually, I don't even know what David Fincher intended. To make another American film and present Sweden in it?... What if by any chance an American didn't know where Sweden is? Or to make a Swedish film, but only with English, or rather American actors? The film itself is good. There is nothing I would blame it for. But in the end, it has only one plus. And that's the actors. Everything else is just trying to surpass the original. But the original just can't be surpassed. Unfortunately. And it saddens me that a director like Fincher has tarnished his career by getting involved in something that has already been filmed once. Although, his problem. He has successors who can benefit from his films anyway, so what. (26/01/2012)