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Review - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Destined to become a bona fide global phenomenon, Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy kicked off with this clever, original and stylish mystery. The appeal of the first movie is clear. Very interesting characters, a splendid plot that unravels at a fascinating pace, good dialogue and interesting use of locations in Sweden. Squarely aimed at adults, some scenes will give the squeamish an unpleasant time, but all in the name of what is basically a ripping yarn.
The premise of the story is the unsolved disappearance of Harriet Vanger, which Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is enlisted to help resolve. In addition Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the titular character, gets involved via a series of coincidences, and the two team up to investigate a serial killer, via some extremely clever investigative reporting.
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Of course, Millennium II and III, reviewed on this site, although greatly anticipated, turned out not to be worth the wait, and perhaps Hollywood has been a little premature in signing up to re-tell the whole trilogy for their American audience. The bottom line however is that the original version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is fantastic, proving once again that if the source material is great, well the movie should be too.
There are some stand out scenes, especially when Blomqvist pieces together some archive footage of the parade, the last time Harriet was seen alive, and we get to see what has frightened her. Unlike Millennium II and III, the Lisbeth Salander character has plenty of action and dialogue, and we admire her independence, toughness, frankness and resourcefulness.
Assuming one has the stomach for some scenes of sado masochism, that help define the Salander character's repression, the only fault is the series of unnecessary endings that plague the film, ensuring every last loose end is neatly tied up. Sometimes the audience needs to do a bit of work for themselves. Nevertheless, this fully deserves 9/10
Review written by John Franklin : January 2011
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