The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011) dir. David Fincher *
Starring: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, Joely Richardson
By Greg Klymkiw
2009 saw the release of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a terrific thriller based on the late Stieg Larsson's bestselling novel - very well directed by Niels Arden Oplev and featuring superb performances from Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace and Sven-Bertil Taube. In a raw, jangly, pulsating and uncompromising style, it told the story of Mikael Blomkvist (Nyqvist), a journalist disgraced in a libel suit who is hired by an aging former industrialist Henrik Vanger (Taube) to solve an ages old mystery. With the help of Lisbeth Salander (Rapace), a brooding punker babe with a knack for computer espionage, a deep, dark, dirty secret is uncovered that involves a serial killer within Sweden's most powerful family.
Fast forward to the present.
2011 sees the release The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a dull thriller based on the late Stieg Larsson's bestselling novel - poorly directed by David Fincher and featuring mediocre performances from Daniel Craig, Rooney Nara and Christopher Plummer. In a fake, plodding, limp and barely-by-the-numbers style, it tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist (Craig), a journalist disgraced in a libel suit who is hired by an aging former industrialist Henrik Vanger (Plummer) to solve an ages old mystery. With the help of Lisbeth Salander (Mara), a brooding punker babe with a knack for computer espionage, a deep, dark, dirty secret is uncovered that involves a serial killer within Sweden's most powerful family.
For some reason, I am reminded of the title to an old Agnes Varda movie.
You might remember it:
One Sings, The Other Doesn't.
The latter movie has no reason to exist. Even some of the worst Tinseltown remakes of foreign films - and I mean the WORST, utterly godawful (let's try to NOT name them as it's best to repress their existence) - are movies that TRIED (pathetically) to bring something new to the proceedings. David Fincher's abomination does very little in that respect. It's the same plot, roughly the same story structure, the same setting and pretty much the same characters.
The differences? Well, they are both few and many at the same time. Fincher's movie features mostly English-speaking actors, speaking English, but with slight accents. The original was in its mother tongue. The title character in Fincher's picture has a bit more humour, but way less mystery than the original Lisbeth Salander. Oplev's picture seemed rooted in the late 90s and as such had a slight period flavour to it, and stylistically it even had a few dashes of 70s-style magic. Fincher's movie feels like it's set in the here and now, but doesn't bother exploring any of the current political implications of this.
The sexual violence in Fincher's film is shocking, but only because it's the only life the movie has, and as such, is vile and exploitative in all the worst ways. The sexual violence in Oplev's film was also shocking, but rooted in a superbly constructed motion picture wherein it tied directly into the original novel's themes and as such, did not stick out like borderline pornographic nastiness.
Fincher's film is paced like the worst television crime procedural, but on lithium. Oplev's version moved like a speeding bullet, screeching to a halt every so often to engage us in something brooding, tantalizing, horrific or yes, even sexy. Fincher's movie has a running time of 158 minutes, but felt like 851 minutes. Oplev's theatrical cut was 152 minutes, but was so good, it felt like 52 minutes and all I can really remember about it from that standpoint is that I didn't want it to end (unlike Fincher's where I couldn't stop looking at my watch).
Worst of all, Fincher's movie has nothing new or interesting to add to the story - no real point of view and finally, it's little more than a dull re-do of something that was genuinely fine.
I'll need, probably, to admit that I have little use for Fincher. He's pretty much a fake in my books. The insanely overrated Se7en was for me, all sizzle and no steak. Alien 3 is the worst film in the franchise and yes, even worse than the Alien Versus Predator (AVP) pictures since they, at least, had something resembling a sense of humour and a decent trash-mentality instead of Fincher's pseudo-brooding. The Game was watchable, but inconsequential. Panic Room was just noisy and gave me a migraine. Fight Club was surprisingly good until the final third when the cop-out dénouement pretty much negated everything that preceded it.
There are, however, two Fincher pictures I think are not without SOME merit. Zodiac, though ultimately a mess, was strangely compelling and The Social Network was probably the best movie one could make about FaceBook.
Fincher also deserves some credit for fooling a lot of people who should know better into thinking he's more than a marginal talent.
For me, though, one of the worst exemplifications of Fincher's mediocrity is on display at the beginning of his wretched Dragon Tattoo remake. We begin with a cryptic pre-credit sequence that does very little to set the stage for the movie and then it is followed by a ludicrous title credit sequence feature black, shiny, liquid-like images of the lead characters set to the strains of a (I must admit grudgingly) pretty fabulous cover version of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". My immediate thought was that this was some bone-headed attempt to set the stage for a James Bond-styled credit sequence in the hopes that this and the sequels will have the same sort of franchise value. It's moderately cool to look at, but has none of the charm of Maurice Binder's brilliant (optically, not digitally achieved) title sequences. Hilariously, I have subsequently read that Fincher wished this to represent Lisbeth Salander's unconscious.
Gee, Dave, you're a thinking man, eh?
Good for you, bud
It looked like a rock video to me.
Have a beer, eh.
Hmmm, didn't you used make music videos before you started inflicting us with your lunkheaded, pretentious fakery in the medium of feature film?
And now, you've delivered one of the most appalling, cynical cash-grabs I've ever had the displeasure to sit through.
I think I'm the one who needs a beer. A whole case, followed by a long, hot shower.
There's no reason for this movie to exist.
There's even less reason to bother seeing it.