For the past forty years a Wealthy Swedish recluse, Henrik Vanger, has been asking himself what happened to his beloved niece, Harriet. He assumes that someone might have killed her. Henrik hires Journalist Mikael Blomqvist to investigate who murdered Harriet. Mikael later gets help from a professional hacker named Lisbeth Salander.
Blaine: I don’t like that studios make American remakes of foreign language films because they are not as good as the original. When I found out there was going to be an American version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” I thought that was a terrible idea. But when I saw it I didn’t think it was that bad, although I still think the Swedish version is better because I have fun watching it. And judging by what I’ve seen in the Swedish version, there is more to the investigation. Like Lisbeth and Mikael are going around investigating more than one murder that could possibly be connected to Harriet’s murder.
There were no surprises for me, like what happened to Harriet and who the killer was because I saw the Swedish version first, so I knew what was going to happen. This version did however have a few things that were different compared to the Swedish version. For one there’s a lot more nudity. And the ending to this one is more true to how the book ends. In the end, Lisbeth buys Mikael a motorcycle jacket as a Christmas present and she goes to take it to him. But then she sees him holding Erika Berger, his co-worker, as they are walking away. Lisbeth thought that she and Mikael had something special going on. Lisbeth is heartbroken. She throws the jacket away and rides off on her motorcycle. It’s more dramatic and depressing. Director David Fincher watched the original Swedish version in order to see how he could make his version different.
In the Swedish version, Mikael doesn’t need to know that much about who Harriet was except she went missing decades ago and that she is presumed dead. Mikael had a connection to Harriet. She used to babysit him when he was four years old. So one of the reasons why he is doing the case, in my opinion, is because it’s personal. Harriet was always nice to Mikael as a boy. Daniel Craig is a great actor, but his performance as Mikael isn’t one of my favorites. I like Michael Nyqvist's take on the character more and the reason why is because I feel he shows a lot more to his performance. He makes me believe he is Mikael Blomkvist.
When Noomi Rapace played Lisbeth Salander she showed how bad ass she is. She showed a lot of expression on her face and showed that she doesn’t take shit from anybody. Rooney Mara hardly showed any expression on her face when she played the character. She showed that life hasn’t been so kind to Lisbeth Salander after having an abusive father and spending her childhood in a kids prison where she was sexually assaulted. She shows a blank look on her face a lot of the time because being treated like that at a young age has left her nothing, but misery and anger. She has feelings inside, but she doesn’t show them outside. Rooney Mara had worked with director David Fincher the year before on “The Social Network”. Rooney was only around for four days when they shot “The Social Network” because her role was small. What amazed David about Rooney was how she was always ready to work and how much energy she had. When it came to casting Lisbeth Salader, David thought Rooney should come in and audition even though it was hard for him to imagine her as Lisbeth. Rooney wasn’t interested in the role at first because she wasn’t sure if she could do a part like this or if she was right for it.
Rooney watched the original film, read all of Steig Larson’s books and became obsessed with the story and the character. When Rooney got the part she had to go through a complete transformation. The first thing she did was dye her hair black. David didn’t want Lisbeth to have the same hairstyle through the whole movie like the Swedish version. Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth would have only one hairstyle through each one of the “Dragon Tattoo” movies and that bothered David. A hair stylist shaved the back of Rooney's head and cut her bangs. Then he used Rooney’s hair as an example for the different hairstyles. David wanted Rooney’s eyebrows to be shaved off, but the hairstylist knew they would have to shave them off every ten days and little dots would show as they would be growing back. So Rooney bleached them instead. Rooney got a few piercings for the ears, eyebrows and nose. The makeup artist played around with Rooney’s face for two days to find the right look for Lisbeth Salander. Rooney freaked out after seeing herself in the mirror, but she got use to it after five minutes. She felt like a completely new person. Rooney also had to do a lot of physical work. She had to do motorcycle training, learn how to skateboard and learn kickboxing.
The look of the dragon tattoo on Rooney’s back was a challenge. Her dragon tattoo is on the left side of her back. Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth Salander had a dragon tattoo that covered up her entire back. The dragon looked like it was clawing itself out of her skin. In the Swedish version, Lisbeth is haunted by her past at times. Mikael knows something is troubling Lisbeth, but she won’t tell him what’s wrong. He learns about Lisbeth’s past in the next film, “The Girl Who Played with Fire”. In this version she comes clean with him. He asks her the question and she just tells him.
There’s one shot in the movie where Lisbeth Salander is thinking evil thoughts. The camera goes over the top of her and goes upside down. Another thing I like about this version is the editing job done by Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter. There’s a shot that shows Lisbeth on her motorcycle approaching fast and passing by and as you would look towards where the motorcycle was going it cuts to Mikael sliding on the floor as he is being pulled on a rope by the murdering suspect. That’s a scene that is well edited. Another scene I like the way it is edited is when Lisbeth is at a club and it cuts to black a lot before it cuts to the different shots of people at the club. The last scene I like that is well edited is the subway fight sequence when Lisbeth fights someone and gets her backpack back after he just snatched it out her arms. It cuts to a lot of different angles in just a few seconds as she is fighting the guy on the escalator. Then Lisbeth jumps and slides the middle side of the escalator. Her backpack is sliding down as well and then she just runs down the escalator to catch up with her backpack. Like Noomi Rapace, playing Lisbeth Salander helped give Rooney Mara her big break. She was getting a lot of attention after “Dragon Tattoo” and her performance earned her an oscar nomination.
My rating on this version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is three out of five stars.
Blaine: I like how this shot focusses on Rooney Mara from a distance
