Friday, May 4, 2012

Review: Girl With the Dragon Tattoo


I have spent the last couple of days, doing battle with a "un-named" hacker who entertained themselves with messing with my google account and all the blogs there within! Finally got that all fixed and it inspired me to think of the good "hacker" movies I have seen and totally realized I have never reviewed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Warning! This is the vilest of vile stories turned into a really good movie. Which is very different than a good story turned into a vial movie. Every bit of nudity, language and violence in this movie, in my opinion, just makes the story more real and honest. That is the difference between The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and some of the trash out there now which is like those "Butterball" turkeys that start out kinda of puny but then it is injected with a lot of crap or in the movie business naked women, cuss words and blood spatters. How about we just get back to Real stories told honesty?

The story, originaly titled Man How Hates Women, is first of a series. It was written by the late, Swedish author Stieg Larsson and already made into a Swedish movie. This is a story that has gotten a lot of press, articles in Vanity Fair and such and Larsson's legacy has definitely lived on through the efforts of his partner Eva Gabrielsson.


The story, or US movie adaption, centers around Mikael Blomkvist...


a black marked journalist who seeks sanctuary in the far north writing  the patriarch of a wealthy family's memoir, but what he ends up doing is solving one of the family's little dirty secrets, intertwined in power, anti Semitism and as the original title suggested....men who hate women.

The Swedish setting is wonderful, I wish more movies would be set in such places, instead of always in LA, New York, or London. The stark landscape and Scandinavian style of the cars, houses, furnishings set against the greys and white of winter really adds to the story.

Mikael is played by one of the my favorite actors Daniel Craig, of course known for the OO7 franchise...

The patriarch of the family is played by Christopher Plumier...


who, though in his early 80's , has  had a resurgence of late with movies such as the Last Station...


And Lisbeth,  as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

is played by Rooney Mara, whose biggest movie so far has been The Social Network...


which I confess I have no desire to see, but will be definitely looking out for her next starring roles.

In the movie, Mara is a brilliant computer whiz and hacker and a ward of the state with an sadistic social worker, who demands sexual favors from her. Putting an end to that, Mara also seeks refuge in the far North, taking on the job of research assistant to Craig.


The two form a rather untypical love interest and the dark secret of the Vanger Family empire only are revealed with both of their unique skill sets and tenacity. Again, be warned this is an uncomfortable movie to watch in many ways...

Interestingly, for a movie with such a strong female character, it fails "the girl test" which according to bechdeltest.com...

1. Does the movie have at least two named women characters in it? YES
2. Do they talk to each other? NO
3. Do they talk to each other about something besides a man? NO

Most movies fail or barely make it. In The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth has a adversarial relationship with a company archive secretary, when she is trying to research the movements of one of the company's executives, but she never talks to another named female character. Hum?

The US version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is out now on DVD and available for download on Amazon.

The original trilogy...

in Swedish is available on Netflix at the moment with English subtitles.




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