When I worked at Waterstones the store sold a lot of copies of Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millenium Trilogy’ (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest), and I heard good things about the books, but I never felt compelled to pick them up. The same can be said for Niels Arden Oplev’s 2009 film adaption, I’d heard good things but never felt compelled to go and see it, or even rent or download it in the years following its release. Again the same thing happened with David Fincher’s adaption, I hadn’t seen the Swedish original so why would I see the American cash-in? I did end up seeing it though, I missed the beginning of The Artist and this was the soonest starting movie so I bought a ticket not expecting too much from it.
I enjoyed it a lot. I think the Lisbeth Sander character is very interesting with a great deal of depth, even without having read the books I think if Larsson hadnt died Lisbeth could have become a long running and well loved fixture in the crime genre, and I very much look forward to seeing more of her in the next two films. The story is much darker than I expected too, dealing with rape, torture, mutilation, sadism, incest, with a sprinkling of Nazis. Maybe I liked it so much because it caught me off guard, something is always better when you dont expect much from it. Daniel Craig played his part well too although Im still not sure on what was happening with his accent, I cant decide if it was meant to be all out Swedish or the Swedish of a person who has spent a lot of time living outside of Sweden. Anyway, go see it while it’s still on.
Also, the title sequence was pretty fucking amazing:
And a little insight in to the making of the titles can be read HERE.
