Place Eyes Here

Maybe I’ll just use Tumblor as a dump for movie reviews from now on. Might as well use it for something.

We went to see Girl with a Dragon Tattoo last night. It was odd, since I just saw the original movie a week or so ago, and loved it. (For clarity, I’ll refer to them as Mark I and Mark II. For further clarity, this does not refer to anyone named Mark.)

In short: Mk I was better. But not by much.

Mk II was definitely a solid movie … I just don’t think Fincher has the patience to do a murder mystery. He whizzed past (or glossed over) some fairly important — albeit boring — plot points. If I wasn’t already familiar with the story, I would have been totally lost. Mk I’s pacing was smoother, more fluid, but not more exciting. Mk II had more style, but there was no sense of discovery as the characters unraveled the mystery.

Some of the changes were interesting, from a film-making perspective. The time line was tweaked very slightly. I think it was a good change, and I’m impressed that they thought to do it. The ending though … not sure what happened there. The ending of Mk I was left open, hinting at further adventures. Mk II’s ending went on for several additional minutes, and hit a fairly bleak note. It may have been truer to the book, but the bittersweet mood they were going for seemed out of place.

Some changes just sucked … in particular the climax between Lizbeth and Mr. Bad Guy. In Mk I she made a crucial decision; in Mk II, she was a spectator. Lame. And her backstory was cut almost entirely, perhaps to make room for the not-all-that-interesting-or-relevant new material at the end.

Oh, and Noomi and Rooney were equally hot, even though they screwed up Rooney’s eyebrows in Mk II.