The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Back in early 2010, the Swedish film of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” – original onscreen title “Men Who Hate Women” – was released in the United States. I loved the grisly Euro thriller about a disgraced journalist teaming with an emotionally scarred female hacker to solve a 40-year-old murder. Now the Americanized remake (re-adaptation?) arrives from director David Fincher, still set in Sweden, but with bigger names. Daniel Craig is the journalist, and Rooney Mara (“Social Network”) is Lisbeth, the hacker. This rock-solid take has a dark chilly mood to spare, and presents a more complex Lisbeth, a woman who has cut herself off from the world, calculating and scarily brilliant, but prone to still sadly eat Happy Meals. Mara makes the role her own, a bundle of disjoints and razor edges, silently raging. She rocks. Yes, it is disconcerting to see big-name actors traipse around in Swedish snow so soon after seeing other actors speak their own language in their own land, but Craig is oddly effective (and nerdy) as an everyman in deep turmoil. Scripter Steven Zallian smartly condenses the long post-climax. Still, check out the original, a true gut-puncher. 2011: A-

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2010)

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” finishes the so-called Millennium Trilogy not with a blast or a happy or even a grim conclusion. It is not what I hoped for in a Swiss-language series that started with a killer thriller (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) followed by a middling-by-comparison second-part bridge story (“The Girl Who Played With Fire”).

This deficit is not the fault of director Daniel Alfredson or his writers, though. It is apparent from Web stories that source book author and leftist-journalist Stieg Larson planned a 10-part series on his Superman alter-ego, a left-wing magazine editor named Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), and his punk/hacker lover-cum-daughter figure Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a goth girl who would make Robert Smith cower. Alas, Larson died.

“Nest” brings the events of the first film full circle. “Tattoo” focused on a young woman who was brutalized by her father and brother, and a woefully corrupt government. As set up in “Fire,” it is Lisbeth who suffers a similar fate. Alas, in a twist that takes much of the sting – pardon the pun – out of Lisbeth, our heroine spends nearly the entire film hospitalized and then incarcerated, away from Mikael. It is he (again, Stieg) who must save Lisbeth’s life, and, I suppose by some weird symbolic effort, that of all women, against the Men Who Hate Women. (The original title of the first book/film. This third book’s Swedish title was “The Air Castle That Exploded.” I don’t know what it means.)

Love it or hate it, it’s been a hell of ride in a single year. I can’t recall another series of films that put one woman through such a hellish trip of beatings, rapes, near deaths and torture. Yet, they introduced a kick-ass, no-shit heroine. Lisbeth, as played by Rapace, has a singular fury and obsession normally reserved for Eastwood or Stallone of some French European hit man too cool for school. Alfredson improves on his direction here, the wheels don’t grind as much here.

A major sore spot opens up here. Larson has a killer lead heroine, hands down. But his other women are absolute doormats. It's Mikael's co-editor/fuck buddy (Lena Endre). Erika always has been the sicko male-fantasy doormat woman, always available and always willing and always forgiving, but here she goes over the top. Or under the bottom, so to speak. Mikael is an ass to her from frame one, and Erika runs back to him. Again and again. I hated this in Book 1, and it showed ugly bright here in silver screen film.

As with “Fire,” “Nest” is not bad, it has nasty, evil grandpops running about doing bad deeds, but it’s just lacking a true finale. A third-act confrontation between Lisbeth and her evil Bond-villain brother brings back a bit of the revenge kick from “Tattoo,” but this third supposed series closer remains just another bridge. One that with Larson’s death and no more books leads nowhere. So, a downgrade from thee second film. B-

The Girl Who Played With Fire (2010)

In most trilogies, the middle film is always awkward. Background info is required from the first entry, and the ending is wide open and bleak. Such is “The Girl Who Played With Fire,” which follows "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” If you don't know the grisly past, you'll be lost. And it ends with a literal gaping hole in the head for a coming third chapter, which also has “Girl” in the title. (A fourth film should be called, “The Girl Who Screamed, ‘I’m a Damn Woman’”)

The pyro-player is punk/hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), who is wanted by police for the slaying of two journalists, even as she hunts for the first man to ruin her life. This is her father, who she set on fire in a flashback in film one. Figuring into her life again is editor Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), employer of the slain journalists.

“Fire” lacks the spark that drove “Tattoo.” It smells of a TV police drama with dot connections galore, and sports an oddly placed body-builder villain from 007. Rapace as Lisbeth is one hell of a heroine -- silent, deadly and calculating. It’s not remotely a bad film, there just may have been no place to go but down. B

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2010)

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a two-and-half-hour, subtitled serial killer thriller from Sweden that ought to carry an NC-17 rating. It is a dark, grisly, great film. Based on the popular book and boasting the original European on-screen title of “Men Who Hate Women,” this is the most disturbing and deep crime film I have seen in ages. Director Niels Arden Oplev pulls no punches in depictions of murder, hangings, rapes and crime scene photography. This puts the word “horror” back in the genre, a reminder that films about killers and mass death must not glamorize crime. Even a young girl kills here.

The plot follows newly disgraced left-wing journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) as he bolts from Stockholm for a one-shot gig at helping an elderly billionaire solve the case of his murdered niece. The girl went missing 40-odd years ago, and the dying man suspects none and all of his family. Meanwhile, a young punk hacker named Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) who was hired to investigate Mikael continues to follow him, fascinated by the man’s mettle, even as she is horribly violated by her parole officer. Lisbeth is no wallflower. She is as powerful as the fire-spewing dragon inked on her back, and has a devastating past only hinted at, leaving me desperately curious: Who is this woman? She is the mystery here, fascinating to watch. (Rapace rules the film in a star-making act.)

“Dragon” is the rare thriller that focuses on character flaws, gifts, demons, nightmares, shortcomings, and they way these people bounce off and well, kill, each other. No cartoon teenagers, or whacked out masked killers here, nor heroic SWAT teams knocking doors down, nor are miracle heroics involved. It’s more similar to “Zodiac” (2007) with its depiction of investigative tactics, paperwork and the grinding brain work required in criminal cases. Mikael is a regular guy scared for his life. It’s Lisbeth who has the active hero role. (Update/August 2010: Lisbeth is much more the active heroine here at the climax than the book, a rather odd sex fantasy book for men that left me cold.)

A major gripe: Having “Girl” in the American book title and the onscreen subtitle translation implies a certain sexism. If this were about a 20-something man, this would not be the “The Boy with the Dragon Tattoo.” A silly move. I daresay Lisbeth is the most complex female snoop I have seen on screen since Jodie Foster starred in “The Silence of the Lambs.” There’s an American remake in the works by David Fincher of “Se7en” and “Zodiac” fame. He is the only American director alive that can pull off a re-do of this material. This “Dragon” will be a major trick to top though. A