*Note: The first part of this review is (relatively) spoiler-free, but I’ll include some spoilers at the end.

First off, I should admit at the beginning that I’m a fan of the Millennium trilogy, the three books that Stieg Larsson wrote before his death in 2004. The books have their faults, of course, but the heart of the series was a completely unique, fascinating, well-drawn, and unconventional heroine. I’ve seen the Swedish films as well, the ones starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, and they’re decent-to-good adaptations of Larsson’s work. My favorite book and my favorite Swedish film apaptation is still the first one, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I know the Swedish films are often criticized, but I think the Swedish GWTDT film is excellent, and it stands up.

So, given my love of the Swedish film, I was already primed to be extra-judgy of David Fincher’s Americanized adaptation. Plus, I’ve grown to dislike Rooney Mara a little bit, considering her interviews are revealing the little fact that she’s kind of dumb and conceited. But I have to say… there was a lot in Fincher’s film that I really liked.

The basic story is… well, there’s nothing basic. Calling it a “Whodunit” or a murder mystery isn’t the whole plot, but in its essence, yes, it is a murder mystery. Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth Salander, a young woman who is misanthropic, a legal ward of the state, who may or may not have mental issues and violent tendencies. She’s blunt, she’s honest, she’s supposed to look very young and androgynous, and she’s supposed to radiate intelligence. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, one of Sweden’s most respected and controversial journalists, who just got his ass handed to him in a libel case.

So, how did Daniel and Rooney do? Rooney was much better than I was expecting. She had the look of a haunted child, and she often looked frighteningly small and vulnerable. Her accent work was stellar – I never heard anything resembling an American accent. But! I still prefer Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth, honestly. When Lisbeth is in danger, Noomi let you feel her terror and helplessness, and it was devastating. When Lisbeth is angry, Noomi projected the shaking, all-consuming rage. Rooney just… didn’t. Her performance wasn’t as powerful, but it was still pretty solid.

As for Daniel as Mikael… he was good. The Mikael character is at his best when he’s playing off the women in his life, and Daniel definitely came alive in his scenes with Robin Wright and Rooney. There were moments where Daniel seemed less like a journalist in over his head and more like a supremely competent British spy, though. Daniel just seems too… capable. But he was good, and at the end of the day, he’s lovely to look at, and he brought more emotional depth to Blomkvist than Nyqvist did.

My biggest problem with the film was David Fincher’s direction, and whoever edited it. The pacing was completely off in the first 15 minutes – I knew what was happening in the story, but even I was like, “WTF is happening here? Why are they introducing that character right now?” Then, in the final big action/suspense sequence, the whole thing was just a f–king mess. What could have been a series of gradually terrifying scenes were completely c–kblocked by bad pacing, bad editing and several sequences that should have been cut out of the script in the first week of preproduction. And then after that, the movie just hung around for another half an hour while they wrapped up the additional plotlines. Those plotlines had to be dealt with, of course, but Fincher really took his time and it got slightly boring.

So… I’m recommending the film, but I also think you guys should totally try the Swedish film, just because it really is a much, much better film overall. Seriously.

************SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ****************

*Fincher messed with the story line in some little ways that I didn’t mind at all. Like, he introduced a cat to the little cottage where Blomkvist is staying, and g–damn if that cat didn’t steal all of Daniel’s scenes. At one point, Blomkvist is asleep in bed, and the cat is sleeping on his head. That was my favorite part. UPDATE: Er, was there a cat in the book? I completely forgot about it. Sorry!

*Some of you are probably wondering about the pivotal rape scene. In the Swedish film, the violence is traumatizing to the viewer, and you can really feel Lisbeth’s helplessness, her terror, her inability to fight back. The scene is so powerful, that act of violence haunts the rest of the film, and the rest of the series. The scene in this film was… well, it’s still violent and disturbing, but it was nowhere near as traumatic as the Swedish version.

*It takes FOREVER for Lisbeth and Mikael to finally get to work together, and even then, the story keeps separating them. It pissed me off – we waited for so long to see lots of scenes with Mikael and Lisbeth in the cottage, and you barely get any payoff.

*Lisbeth’s control over her own destiny was subtly taken away from book to screen. In the books, she makes several pivotal decisions that influence future plotlines. In the American film, those decisions are made by other characters – and things happen TO her, and she does less to affect her own course of action.

Promotional images courtesy of Columbia Pictures/IMDB and Empire Magazine.