July 12, 2010
DVD REVIEW: 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'
No Need for Upcoming Hollywood Remake
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
After watching my newly arrived DVD of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (Yellow Bird/Music Box Films, Swedish with English subtitles, also English dubbed version, 2 hours 32 minutes) I wondered why this outstanding print-to-film translation of Stieg Larsson's best-selling novel is scheduled to get the Hollywood treatment.
The remake will be directed by David Fincher and stars like Johnny Depp, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are rumored to play Mikael Blomqvist (played by Mikael Nyqvist in the Swedish original). Natalie Portman is one of the contenders to portray 24-year-old goth hacker Lisbeth Salander (played to perfection by Noomie Rapace in the Niels Arden Oplev-helmed original). Both Nyquvist and Rapace are perfect in the leading roles and the other players are equally well cast. Again, I repeat: There is no need for a remake, but who am I to argue with the geniuses of Hollywood!
I never could understand this concept of taking a perfectly good foreign movie -- in the case of this one, a much more than perfectly good one -- and making a U.S. version, but then I've been a fan of foreign movies for many decades now. Subtitles don't bother me, but if you don't like the subtitled version on this disc, play the English-dubbed one included in the set-up menu. It's an outstanding job of dubbing and my wife, Liz, liked it better than trying to read the subtitles.
Before his untimely death of a heart attack in November 2004 at the age of 50, Larsson had completed the three manuscripts of the so-called "Millenium" series: "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," "The Girl Who Played With Fire," and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest." Altogether, his trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 countries as of the spring of 2010, making him one of the top selling authors in the world.
The three novels were filmed and released to the Swedish and European markets in 2009 and "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" quickly became the top-grossing Swedish film of all time and the top-grossing European film of 2009. This film, the first of the filmed trilogy, was released in the U.S. earlier this year, with the other two scheduled to follow later this year. It had limited theatrical release, but don't look for it at a multiplex near you.
Mikael Blomqvist is the editor of the muckraking left-wing magazine Millenium. (Larsson obviously modeled the character on himself, since he was the editor of the magazine Expo which specialized in exposing neo-Nazi activity in Sweden). Blomqvist has been convicted of libeling an industrialist. He has to pay a hefty fine and serve three months in jail, but before he's due to begin his sentence, he takes on the task of trying to find Harriet Vanger, who disappeared in September 1966.
His employer is Henrik Vanger, the 82-year-old patriarch of the Vanger Group, an industrial conglomerate, and Harriet's uncle. The other members of the Vanger family, who live in palatial houses on an island, don't like the idea of Blomqvist probing Harriet's disappearance, as Blomqvist and Salander, who helps him in his investigation, quickly discover.
My DVD came from Amazon.com. I doubt that most video stores will handle this film, so go online and order this outstanding filmed version of a novel that's taken the world by storm.
Websites: www.dragontattoofilm.com; www.musicboxfilms.com
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DVD REVIEW: 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'
No Need for Upcoming Hollywood Remake
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen
After watching my newly arrived DVD of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" (Yellow Bird/Music Box Films, Swedish with English subtitles, also English dubbed version, 2 hours 32 minutes) I wondered why this outstanding print-to-film translation of Stieg Larsson's best-selling novel is scheduled to get the Hollywood treatment.
The remake will be directed by David Fincher and stars like Johnny Depp, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are rumored to play Mikael Blomqvist (played by Mikael Nyqvist in the Swedish original). Natalie Portman is one of the contenders to portray 24-year-old goth hacker Lisbeth Salander (played to perfection by Noomie Rapace in the Niels Arden Oplev-helmed original). Both Nyquvist and Rapace are perfect in the leading roles and the other players are equally well cast. Again, I repeat: There is no need for a remake, but who am I to argue with the geniuses of Hollywood!
I never could understand this concept of taking a perfectly good foreign movie -- in the case of this one, a much more than perfectly good one -- and making a U.S. version, but then I've been a fan of foreign movies for many decades now. Subtitles don't bother me, but if you don't like the subtitled version on this disc, play the English-dubbed one included in the set-up menu. It's an outstanding job of dubbing and my wife, Liz, liked it better than trying to read the subtitles.
Before his untimely death of a heart attack in November 2004 at the age of 50, Larsson had completed the three manuscripts of the so-called "Millenium" series: "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," "The Girl Who Played With Fire," and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest." Altogether, his trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 countries as of the spring of 2010, making him one of the top selling authors in the world.
The three novels were filmed and released to the Swedish and European markets in 2009 and "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" quickly became the top-grossing Swedish film of all time and the top-grossing European film of 2009. This film, the first of the filmed trilogy, was released in the U.S. earlier this year, with the other two scheduled to follow later this year. It had limited theatrical release, but don't look for it at a multiplex near you.
Mikael Blomqvist is the editor of the muckraking left-wing magazine Millenium. (Larsson obviously modeled the character on himself, since he was the editor of the magazine Expo which specialized in exposing neo-Nazi activity in Sweden). Blomqvist has been convicted of libeling an industrialist. He has to pay a hefty fine and serve three months in jail, but before he's due to begin his sentence, he takes on the task of trying to find Harriet Vanger, who disappeared in September 1966.
His employer is Henrik Vanger, the 82-year-old patriarch of the Vanger Group, an industrial conglomerate, and Harriet's uncle. The other members of the Vanger family, who live in palatial houses on an island, don't like the idea of Blomqvist probing Harriet's disappearance, as Blomqvist and Salander, who helps him in his investigation, quickly discover.
My DVD came from Amazon.com. I doubt that most video stores will handle this film, so go online and order this outstanding filmed version of a novel that's taken the world by storm.
Websites: www.dragontattoofilm.com; www.musicboxfilms.com
Share This Story:
Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
