The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (again)

Ah, the remake. I’m afraid I have never been one for the remake. I just don’t see the point. Oh sure, I see the commercial sense. Many more people, including those unable to read quickly enough to keep up with subtitles, will now see this story. Writer Stieg Larrson’s heirs will have more royalties to tussle over, but from my point of view once was enough. It was done, and done well, in Swedish with Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist. Repeating the same story blow-by-blow with new actors, speaking English in Sweden, is just unnecessary. I’m not saying Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara have made a bad job of it. On the contrary, they are very good and it’s a good, very well made film, but it adds nothing new to Mr Larrson’s novel. In fact, apart from the language, the only new element that stood out was the somewhat overblown graphics behind the opening titles. Very foreboding, abstractly dark and dramatic, backed by some noise from Trent Reznor. I would say that as an introduction it actually detracts from the experience. The Swedish version started out very low key and quiet, making the sudden violence all the more unexpected and impactful. You also don’t need a man of Craig’s physicality to play Mikael Blomkvist. I kept expecting him to whip out some Bond moves.