Before everyone gets up at arms I am not hating on this series. I read all the books--the first was good, the second was okay, the third not bad--a little too much exposition for me and it really could have used an editor (well they all could have been cut back some). I saw all three of the Swedish versions of the movies with Noomi Rapace, again they were sort of like the books, mostly okay. But let's face it, for anyone who has read and seen the originals--they were a little slow paced, to say the least. I think the term they use is deliberately paced.
When I saw they were doing US remakes of the films, based on new screenplays written from the books, I was okay with that, especially to see what David Fincher would do with the material. I'm not going to say I had high hopes but felt there were things that could be improved upon and of course pacing was at the top of my list. Oh well...
Overall this is a good movie and except for a MAJOR change towards the end of the movie which I'm still not certain I liked, it does stay as true as you can to a 400 and some page book. Filmed pretty much on location, Fincher has washed the movie in grey, white, blues and shadows giving it a cool (as in temperature) modern look, you can almost feel the cold. I liked Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, mostly because he's kind of hot and it makes more sense with him in the lead and bedding all the women he does in the books. (Anyone who's read the books I've talked to thinks this quality was probably the authors fantasy super power or something--so I'll give that to Craig.)
Rooney Mara makes a good counterpart to Rapace from the Swedish movie version and it's obvious she's gone to great lengths to embody the character of Lisbeth Salander right down to the nipple ring--which is real. She's moody, insolent and so tightly wound you are just waiting for her to snap, which she does in a violent way and for those familiar with the incident you could say it was warranted and completely in written character. Her interactions with Craig feel real and they have great chemistry in that awkward way that is written in the book. He is fascinated by her and she just takes control of his and every one's situation.
As usual I'm not going into a lot of detail about the plot of the movie, if you want that you can go here. I said before I liked the movie, but I'm not going to say it was like a WOW movie. I was hoping this re-make would pick up the pace of the original and not move so methodically but they didn't. It is as slow moving as the original with punctuations of extreme violence. Maybe that was done on purpose to make the violence stand out more and be shocking. For me at times it just made a two and a half hour movie feel like four which is a shame because the opening credits are spectacular featuring music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, basically a remake of "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin featuring the vocals of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Here it is. When you are sitting through it, it pumps you up then things come to a screeching halt and plod a bit from there. I don't know, maybe if I didn't already know what was going to happen I might have felt more like things were building to some climax which they ultimately do, but again felt like it took forever to get there.
Now I'm not saying don't go see the movie but am saying be prepared that the flow will feel a lot like the books and the previous movies. You should also be ready for one major change (as previously alluded to) they made from the book for a specific character and it happens near the end of the movie. I'm going to say I prefer the original version of what occurred with this character and more precisely where it happened, in this instance I'll say the writer got it right. I'm sure they have their reasons why they made the change but that still doesn't make it better. Again if you want to know--read the write up or better yet just go see the movie and decide for yourself. I have.
When I saw they were doing US remakes of the films, based on new screenplays written from the books, I was okay with that, especially to see what David Fincher would do with the material. I'm not going to say I had high hopes but felt there were things that could be improved upon and of course pacing was at the top of my list. Oh well...
Overall this is a good movie and except for a MAJOR change towards the end of the movie which I'm still not certain I liked, it does stay as true as you can to a 400 and some page book. Filmed pretty much on location, Fincher has washed the movie in grey, white, blues and shadows giving it a cool (as in temperature) modern look, you can almost feel the cold. I liked Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist, mostly because he's kind of hot and it makes more sense with him in the lead and bedding all the women he does in the books. (Anyone who's read the books I've talked to thinks this quality was probably the authors fantasy super power or something--so I'll give that to Craig.)
Rooney Mara makes a good counterpart to Rapace from the Swedish movie version and it's obvious she's gone to great lengths to embody the character of Lisbeth Salander right down to the nipple ring--which is real. She's moody, insolent and so tightly wound you are just waiting for her to snap, which she does in a violent way and for those familiar with the incident you could say it was warranted and completely in written character. Her interactions with Craig feel real and they have great chemistry in that awkward way that is written in the book. He is fascinated by her and she just takes control of his and every one's situation.
As usual I'm not going into a lot of detail about the plot of the movie, if you want that you can go here. I said before I liked the movie, but I'm not going to say it was like a WOW movie. I was hoping this re-make would pick up the pace of the original and not move so methodically but they didn't. It is as slow moving as the original with punctuations of extreme violence. Maybe that was done on purpose to make the violence stand out more and be shocking. For me at times it just made a two and a half hour movie feel like four which is a shame because the opening credits are spectacular featuring music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, basically a remake of "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin featuring the vocals of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Here it is. When you are sitting through it, it pumps you up then things come to a screeching halt and plod a bit from there. I don't know, maybe if I didn't already know what was going to happen I might have felt more like things were building to some climax which they ultimately do, but again felt like it took forever to get there.
Now I'm not saying don't go see the movie but am saying be prepared that the flow will feel a lot like the books and the previous movies. You should also be ready for one major change (as previously alluded to) they made from the book for a specific character and it happens near the end of the movie. I'm going to say I prefer the original version of what occurred with this character and more precisely where it happened, in this instance I'll say the writer got it right. I'm sure they have their reasons why they made the change but that still doesn't make it better. Again if you want to know--read the write up or better yet just go see the movie and decide for yourself. I have.
Comments
Post a Comment