Lisbeth Salander (played by Claire Foy) partners up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played by Sverrir Gudnason) when she finds herself entangled in a mystery that heavily revolves around her past. This movie is one of those weird cases where it can be seen as both a reboot and a sequel to
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo simultaneously. For anyone who doesn't know, David Fincher's take on
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is personally one of my absolute favorite films (I'll admit that I haven't seen the original Swedish-language film). At first I was kind of bummed that David Fincher - my personal favorite director - wouldn't be directing this film. I had the same feeling about Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig not coming back to star. However, there were two elements to this film that I found to be worthy successors. First, directing credit was handed off to Fede Alvarez (the man behind the remake of
Evil Dead and
Don't Breathe). In his direction, Alvarez lends the movie some style, and there are some legitimately beautiful shots. The other was Claire Foy as Lisbeth Salander.She excellently pulls off every facet required for the character of Lisbeth. She plays the unlikely action hero. She plays the brooding bad ass. She plays the woman who might be in over her head. Finally, she plays the woman who has been victimized, and is clearly broken to the point she has gone insane. Props should also be given to actor LaKeith Stanfield as Edwin Needham, an NSA agent hunting Lisbeth. This is a man who has shown that he can take any challenge that seems to be thrown his way. This movie is no exception, despite his limited screen time. OK, now let's talk about what didn't work about this film. The action sequences rely a little too much on shaky cam at times for my taste. Incorporating an action movie aesthetic into the plot is going to divide people. While it didn't bother me, per se, I can see why it would bother almost anyone. While I found Claire Foy to be on equal footing as Rooney Mara in the role of Lisbeth Salander, I can't really say the same for Sverrir Gudnason as Mikael Blomkvist. While his performance isn't awful, he just doesn't have any real personality to him. I also never really bought his chemistry with Claire Foy (who clearly seems like she's going in circles around the man when it comes to both acting and sheer presence). Because this film felt much more like Lisbeth's story, it felt like Blomkvist didn't really need to be there. Even when Lisbeth would say to him: "I need your help," it just didn't feel right. I also felt that it was mistake to adapt the fourth book in the franchise, and skip over books 2 and 3. It feels like there's information we probably should have known, or at the very least, that we were expected to know. There's also some plot conveniences that just make me scratch my head. A lot of the first act kind of dragged for me too. Overall, I enjoyed a lot of aspects to this movie, but I never really felt as though the whole was truly equal to the sum of its parts.
5 / 10
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