Gripping.
Somewhere mid-film I had a thought that in a sense, this film, can serve as a much better modernization of the Sherlock Holmes genre, than the fun, yet poor, recent Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law loud action Holmes adaption. Granted – the main characters in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are anything but Conan Doyle’s Holmes and Watson, and the violence, at times, way too graphic, but the use of wits and detective skills is more plausible.
Based on late the Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson, this story, originally titled "Men Who Hate Women", is the first of the so called "Millennium Trilogy". Two more installments are already in the making, as well as a reported Hollywood deal, which may make this foreign language film more palatable for Americans who stay clear from subtitled film as if it was the plague…
But back to the film: I have not read the original novel so I cannot attest to how well it was adapted to the big screen. I understand it was a daunting task given the original novel is around 600 pages long… Characters and parts of plot had to be dumped which is only natural. However, as a film I enjoyed it. I found it to be, well, gripping, intriguing, plausible, and even, to a point, redeeming. The casting is terrific, the ending is gratifying yet leaves a taste for more. It’s a close 5-star in my scale.