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Film reviews

Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Film)

by Julian Wood | January 09, 2012 12:03 | Edited January 11, 2012 16:28

David Fincher once again proves his flair behind the camera and it’s gripping storytelling, but is it an unnecessary and too hasty a remake?

The obvious problem with this otherwise classy thriller is that it already exists. Or rather, the 2009 Swedish version starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist seems to have only just come out of circulation (it was the first of a trilogy, which like the unfathomably popular books it is based on, was followed by The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest). Still, the American/Hollywood film biz quite regularly takes European films and remakes them almost immediately as vehicles for US stars on the assumption that most audiences won't have seen the original.

 

One lure for film aficionados is that David Fincher is behind the lens. He is a classy and stylish A-list director with runs on the board (notably Fight Club, Se7en and The Social Network). The plot is pretty much the same as the original film, although those behind the remake have added a couple of switches and plot devices. Whether these are enough to justify the ‘different film' tag is debatable.

 

Fincher films the frozen desolate Nordic landscapes and street scenes with flair. There is also plenty of chasing around different cities and locations, but the heart of the film is in the wild-looking island where the big nasty ruling class Swedish family - the Vangers - lives.

 

Once again investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (this time Daniel Craig) has been smeared and has to clear his name by delving into the murky past of the Vanger family. Once again, he gets to know the punky bisexual hacker Lisbeth Salander. She is spiky in every sense, but then when you find out what has been done to her you can forgive her for that attitude. In fact, such is her troubled relationship to the entire male half of the species that you cannot easily buy the sexual magnetism between her and Blomkvist.

 

Craig has always been more than an action man and he acquits himself pretty well, losing his Bond superhero-ness (even more so than with his previous effort Cowboys & Aliens). Much of the time his character is behind the pace, hence his need for the super smart Lisbeth. Mikael was previously played by Scandinavian stalwart Michael Nyqvist - most famous for the cult film As It Is In Heaven, and most recently featured in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - who, as someone once quipped, has three expressions but he only uses one of them. Craig therefore has more of a clear run. Not so with Lisbeth. The previous occupant, Noomi Rapace (recently popping up unthankfully in the Sherlock Holmes sequel), made that part her own. She was the iconic dragon tattoo bearer and the most riveting person in the previous films. Rooney Mara throws herself into proceedings - full frontally as it were - but in the end cannot quite shake off the judgement that she's doing a parody of Rapace.

 

To be fair, the film is not a wash out. It's tense and well filmed, although off-puttingly long at a reel short of three hours. Nor is it a shot for shot remake like Gus Van Sant's Psycho, but it is so close to the memorable original that you would have had to have not seen that for this version to have its maximum impact.