Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: I’m a fan of the book on which the film is based, so that may color my judgment a bit. Disgraced reporter Michael Blomkvist takes a job investigating the 40-year old disappearance of a young woman who is presumed murdered. The case is complicated by the fact that the family involved provides many suspects as well as by a young anti-social hacker, Lisbeth Salander, who takes a personal interest in his case and helps him determine who the killer really is and what happened to the victim. It's part “locked room” mystery (the girl disappeared from an island) and part serial killer chase, with the business skulduggery subplot from the novel relegated to almost nothing, an afterthought tagged on before the credits. The original Swedish title of the book is “Men Who Hate Women” and the film certainly follows that general theme - violence visited upon women, sexually and physically. The violence throughout is graphic, including rape, torture, murder, immolation, and forced incest, so not for the faint of heart here. The good news is it’s a well constructed, well-paced film that, at 2-and-a-half hours long, just flies by. Also, in an age of where serial killer plots have been done to death, this feels fresh somehow. The film jettisons several of the smaller characters (the staff of "Millenium", the magazine Michael writes for, for example) as well as the real reason that Lisbeth and Michael are separated at the end of the book (don‘t know why on this one as that sets up the 2nd book). Both leads, Michael Nyquist and Noomi Rapace, are solid, though Rapace may be a tad old for Lisbeth (in my mind, Salander is early 20’s; Rapace is 30 and looks it). If you like this one, there are two sequels. Woodchuck sez, “Me likey.”
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