>"You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet - my family." Ending this year with a banger. One of the few hollywood remakes that make sense and is done in an excellent way. The soundtrack and cinematography capture the tone that is needed to tell this story and I wish Fincher, Craig and Mara had come back to make a sequel.

I cannot deny that this movie is well made. It's atmosphere, mystery and thriller elements are all top notch. The story is solid. The detective work is engaging and well depicted. That said, there were other elements that felt grotesque, gratuitous and just extended the runtime a lot. This is a looong movie, and it's made even longer by [spoiler] a bunch of scenes of sex and sexual assault [/spoiler] that we really do not need. Like sure, some of it goes to telling us about Lizbeth's backstory and character, but I honestly think the movie would have been better without them. I think the main justification for why they're there is to establish the characters in ways that only really matter if this movie has sequels, which it was clearly intended to (as the books and Swedish adaptations do), but they never really eventuated. In light of that, I feel that nothing would be lost without those scenes, and the first half of the movie would be shorter and tighter, and the age rating could also probably be bumped down. Overall, I found this a very stressful viewing experience, and not one I'd recommend for the faint of heart, by any means. If you're not easily shocked, you'll find a very good mystery thriller here.

David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is yet another poorly made America remake of a much better foreign film. When a disgraced journalist and a cyber-tech are hired by Henrik Vange to investigate the disappearance of his grandniece 40-years ago, they end up uncovering some disturbing family secrets. Though Fincher creates a beautiful and captivating visual style, the storytelling is poor and unfocused; lingering too long on minutia and meandering through meaningless subplots, deluding the air of mystery among all the tangents and complicated conspiracies. The acting, however, is solid; but even here Rooney Mara isn’t as good as Noomi Rapace in the original, and doesn’t have the charisma to carry the film. While The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a fairly smart dramatic thriller, it suffers from poor execution.

Can’t believe it took me so long to see this! Where have I been hiding all this time!? Must’ve been under a rock! It was incredibly dark and disturbing, but equally as gripping and intriguing. Lots of mystery and lots of unravelling of dark history. What’s not to love in a thriller!

I can’t help but feel there’s a far superior 2 hour cut of this movie somewhere. Technically it’s rock solid. The production is great. Story is interesting. But at this beefy run time, there’s far too many spots that seem to drag. Conceptually, I REALLY want to watch it again. In practicality, it seems like a small chore to do so. I can see why people may love this film, but it’s certainly held back for me slightly due to this reason. Rating: 3.5/5 - 80% - Would Recommend