More rings the better in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: DVD Release of the Week

18 Oct 2010 Leave a comment

by Laura Stackhouse in DVD Releases Tags: , , , ,

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (film)

Image via Wikipedia

It should come as no big surprise that Hollywood are currently remaking another Swedish movie (they must be doing something right!), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Adapted from the book (wow this is just getting plain boring, seriously the film world needs to come up with some new ideas) by Stieg Larsson, the original film version was a success, especially as far as foreign language flicks go.

I’m one of those people who feel the need to read the book before seeing the film. I don’t know whether in fact that’s necessary as rarely do films follow their source material very closely. It was a long book (500 pages) and to be honest, I wasn’t really getting it until 200/250 pages in. It took me months to read because the first half was so slow for me. I just couldn’t understand where it was going. Nothing seemed to be coming together, all the characters seemed so far apart and then BAM! 250 pages in it got real good and I finish the last half in a tenth of the time it took me to read the first.

Anyway, I knew I was probably going to like the movie, because they’d cut out all the stuff I found a bit boring in the novel. The financial journalism and the pages of (I felt) slightly unnecessary overtly descriptive text about the shape of a kettle, or the exact contents of Lisbeth Salander‘s sandwich.

I was right, almost. The film was pretty darn good. Because it cut out a lot of the storyline it had to simplify the plot, cutting out huge sections so that it fit neatly, but at least they kept to the general original premise, and most of the major scenes were included, including a brutal rape scene (although they did tame it just slightly). There were a couple of scenes added in, one especially about Lisbeth’s past, which doesn’t get mentioned in  the first novel, but likely does in the sequels (I haven’t read them, and I’m not sure I will).

The two leads, Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist, and Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander, were amazing. The acting was fantastic and completely believable. Also, throughout the movie I looked at their faces and realised. These are real people, real actors. Not like the over-processed, plastic surgery inflicted actors of Hollywood, which is part of the reason they look so believable. I like that. I like that a lot.

Only slight complaint would be that at times the soundtrack would go from barely there, to loud and overbearing, which was a slight distraction. Also the editing at the end was a little mushed together, probably due to their being so much original content to try to fit in. Without reading the book I would guess that the ending is a little confusing for viewers.

Overall though a definite thumbs up from me. But for anyone who is subtitle-phobic: this is a Swedish movie, and I wouldn’t recommend the dubbed version to anyone. So if you blanch at the site of lines of writing at the bottom of the screen, I would reluctantly suggest you wait for the Hollywood version. You never know, it may be as good… It is being directed by David Fincher after all… Interesting that Rooney Mara (the young woman who plays Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend at the start of The Social Network – another Fincher movie) is playing Lisbeth. I wonder if she can pull off the feminist bisexual with mental problems look? Hmmmm

Out to rent on DVD now.

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