The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Review

Justin and I just got back from seeing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on December 21, 2011. This was an excellent movie that pretty much followed the book of the same name quite accurately. David Fincher put together a pretty incedible film with an excellent cast, and some intense scenes. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, who is a publisher for the Swedish political magazine Millenium. He had been sued for libel after failing to prove allegations against Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. He was sentenced to three months in prison. As a writer, he is selected by Henrik Vanger, the CEO of the Vanger Corporation (played by Christopher Plummer) to write the life story of the family. There are five generations of the Vanger family and they all share different characteristics. Since Blomkvist's main goal is to take down Wennerstrom as he knows he is guilty, Henrik actually offers him monetary compensation and the hard evidence he needs to write this book. Mikael takes it. Let me just say that Daniel Craig is a complete badass. I can't begin to tell you how intense some of his scenes get, but he takes it as only he can. I feel like he has written in his contracts I must have the crap kicked out of me. Henrik believes that his great niece Harriest was murdered by a member of the family, so this basically becomes a criminal investigation. Automatically, I am invested in the story as there are all different types of obstacles that will emerge thus explaining my Daniel Craig feels no pain philsophy. We are introduced to Lisbeth Salander, played wonderfully by Rooney Mara. I can't say enough about how much I loved her in this role and wish she was being nominated for a Golden Globe at least. Lisbeth works for security companies and is really intelligent at getting information and how to track people. She is such an amazing character. As most people know, I love strong female characters. She is a ward of the state since she was considered incompetent as a child and was awarded guardians. Her first guardian ends up suffering a stroke. However, her second guardian ends up being one of the lowest forms of life somebody can be. There are some sexually explicit scenes that result as Nils (the name of the guardian) has his way with her. I was yelling at the screen for the coward he was. However, she does get him back and the other people in the theater including myself were loving every second of it. Some of the punishments she places on him are just great. She really drives the point home "Don't screw with me!!" Lisbeth Salander rules!!! She eventually is tracked down by Mikael to help him "find a killer of women" as they are attempting to track down a serial killer within the Vanger family. Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig had such amazing on screen chemistry. The characters trust each other (which is something that Lisbeth really needs in her life and I liked seeing that) They study photographs from certain events as well as study family trees. Stellan Skarsgaard was really good in his role as Martin Vanger. He had great chemistry with Daniel Craig, as well. Joely Richardson being a major part of this movie was awesome for me as I loved her as Julia McNamara in my all time favorite show Nip/Tuck, and she did a great job in her role as Anita here. She actually has a really important part in this movie, however, I will not spoil it. I also have not written alot about Martin as I don't want to ruin some key plot points. They filled their parts very well. The case does get solved, and then Lisbeth helps Mikhael with his other goal as she uses disguises to deal with the illegal activities of Wennerstrom. As I said, I thought the movie was excellent and Justin really liked it as well. I really loved Rooney Mara in this movie, and thought she really made the character of Lisbeth Salander her own. I give this a definite 5/5. I've really been enjoying the movies I've seen lately. I just love all the mystery involved and the interesting characters interacting on the screen.