Daniel Craig plays a journalist, as muted and unmemorable as the Swedish landscape around him, who teams up with Rooney Mara's pierced tattooed bisexual computer hacker to solve a cliched fifty year old mystery with a cast of suspects they don't even bother properly introducing let alone developing. Why couldn't this overcooked, over-hyped Law & Order: SVU: Sweden episode where the ratio of discussion of rape versus depiction of rape has been shifted have the decency to be under two hours?
The dragon girl character herself is captivating, but she's trapped in a, pardon the expression, fucking retarded story. The first half of her plot line is just watching her being horribly degraded, but it doesn't ring true, because she already seems way too strong to not fight back. The strength of her revenge, and its swiftness, seems to confirm that this woman is not to be fucked with. So why did it happen? So we could watch it? Why did I have to watch it?
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| Was Stieg Larsson the Swedish John Hughes? |
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| Yes. |
~ The scandalous elements of this story aren't really that new anyway. The rape-revenge movie is a long established sub-genre, which recently received the ultimate Hollywood stamp of approval, a remake. I Spit On Your Grave caused such a big stir in 1978 that somebody thiought they could cash in on a remake 32 years later. No matter how weird a movie (or it's genre) may be, Hollywood can't ignore it if it makes money.
~ The music from Trent Reznor is lackluster. The opening credits certainly don't suffer from a dearth of imagination, but I doubt they will enter the pantheon of classic (easy to recognize/parody) credit sequences.
~ The opening song is a cover of Zeppelin's Immigrant Song because I guess Swedes are Vikings or something, I'm not sure. I was distracted wondering if they even tried to get the rights to the original song or if that was considered too old.
~ The guy who played the reporter in the original Swedish version looks much more like a reporter that Daniel Craig.
~ Stieg Larsson, reporter and author of the original Swedish novels, came to work one day, saw that the elevator was out of order, climbed the stairs to his office, sat down at his desk, and died of a heart attack. Bummer.
~ One character leads another into his very secure sex-kill-bunker. Multiple heavy locking doors. But he leaves those doors open behind him apparently in case anybody else wants to sneak in. And he monologues worse than a Bond villain
~ Speaking of Law & Order, you can definitely use the "Narrowed it down to the guy I recognize" rule on this movie.
~ Based on how much I don't want to see this again, this is a very close runner-up for being the worst movie I saw this year. There are a few decent parts, but they are buried beneath a giant mound of frozen turds. You can rest easy, Panic Room or Alien 3 or maybe The Game, you are no longer the 2nd worst David Fincher movie. I'm pretty sure The Curious Case of Who The Fuck Is This For And Why Was It Made will remain the worst no matter what else he makes but perhaps I shouldn't speak so soon.
~ There is some secondary character, an Corporate CEO, who exists only to give evil speeches on courthouse steps. The only person I've ever seen give an evil speech on courthouse steps was Robert Blake.
~ Great Caesar's Ghost, was this long.
~ Christopher Plummer features in the beginning of the film before realizing that he is way too good for this hokum.
~ The original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women. I'll say.
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