As the movie opens we find that Mikael Blomkvist(Daniel Craig), publisher of the Swedish political magazine Millennium, has lost a libel case involving allegations about billionaire industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg), and he is ordered to pay hefty damages and costs that clean out his bank account of savings and has put his magazine in financial straights as well. Blomkvist is then is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the retired CEO of the Vanger Corporation, to discover what happen to his niece Harriet some forty years earlier and is convinced that one of the family had murdered her and for what ever the reason is trying to drive him (Henrik) insane by sending him pictures of flowers on his birthday. The same gift that Harriet had always gave him. And with the way the Vanger family are towards one and another it could be anyone’s best guess on which family member it is.
An apprehensive Blomkvist then moves to the Vanger estate and under the guise of researching into the history of the Vanger family to write the memoirs of Henrik he begins to look into Harriet's disappearance. As the history unfolds, Blomkvist finds himself surround by former Nazis, anti-Semites, and sadists, one of which holds a secret so devastating that it could destroy the family and shake Sweden to it’s core.
Fincher’s version is much more fluid than the original and the only thing that really threw me was the Bondesque opening sequence -while very cool visually- didn’t really fit with the movie overall, especially since I was already trying to disentangle Craig from his Bond persona. (I know he supposedly put on weight for the role, but he still looks like 007 to me). The relationship between Blomkvist and Lisbeth -played by Rooney Mara- has more chemistry than the original between Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist.
With that said, Rooney Mara’s portrayal Lisbeth Salander, the tattooed, anti-social computer hacker and researcher is spot on. It is almost hard to believe that this is the same girl from the remake of “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and thankfully Fincher didn’t flinch when it came to more graphic scenes where Lisbeth is savagely raped. I found that scene in particular more disturbing than the original.
While the overall story remains the same (people kept telling me I either had to read the book or see the Swedish film to able to follow) Fincher’s version is, while not easy because of the layers, close to as the Swedish film as one can get. But there are little moments that really do define Fincher’s film that of Niels Arden Oplev’s. And one does not have to know the story to know what is going on.
The one main thing I found lacking in Fincher’s from Oplev’s is that of the set up with family. Oplev really made it seem that anyone could be the main villain in a family that is plagued by villains. Where as you now almost get a sense of who is behind it all. Also Fincher’s use of adding Blomkvist’s ex-wife and daughter into the mix. They really weren’t needed with the exception of one component of the film with the daughter which Oplev did slightly different.
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