Thursday, December 22, 2011

5 Off My Head - Feeding The Dragon Girl

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If I don't do this right now while I have a little bit of time and I'm hopped up on caffeine I will probably never get to it, so here are five thoughts about David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo really really off the top of my head (that means I haven't even figured out the first one as I type this introduction. Flyin' by the seat of our drawers!)

1 - I saw the movie on Monday and I liked it a lot - I tweeted as much - but I didn't expect it to linger as much as it has. And it has. I've been considering it all week. Pieces keep popping into my head. It is too long - it probably lingers at the start with its set-up a little too glacially. But once Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara's characters finally find each other you're totally hooked lined and sunk right in. I'd seen the Swedish film (I have not read the books) so I knew the answers to the mystery but it didn't matter because the performances were working and the world Fincher plunked us into was so fine to look at.

2 - Rooney Mara was terrific in her small scenes in The Social Network, but she is and I don't use this over-used word lightly a revelation here. TO be honest I never really got all the praise heaped on Noomi Rapace's performance of the role - her choices always seemed a little obvious. Mara on the other hand makes this character so bizarre and electric - you understand quickly and totally how damaged she is and how strange it has made her. She's scary and broken but she can also be super sexy (I do not get turned on by women very often - severe understatement - but her Lisbeth got me on several occasions) and ultimately she becomes this compartmentalized crazy-person superhero... I mean if there's anything recent superhero movies have twisted themselves into ever-more-elaborate knots to get at is just this, how crazy and isolated and broken a person has got to be to want to fight crime on the behalf of strangers, and this movie gets there beautifully.

3 - It's because of her that I even dug - especially, even - the film's final act after the main mystery had been solved, which should feel extraneous in such a long movie. Just... how hot was it watching her buy her wig and super high-end clothes and prance around scamming millions for herself? I loved these scenes. Okay if you can't tell I am completely enamored with this Lisbeth. Over the moon!

4 - I want to cover myself in molten rubber and live inside the opening credits. Hot shit, good goddamn!

5 - Daniel Craig is super sexy (shocker) and does his thing and is always watchable (especially in teensy tiny black briefs, natch) but the character of Mikael Blomkvist is still pretty much just a cipher there to work us through the plot. Which Daniel Craig does well! I could watch him work me through any ol' plot there is! He and Mara's "hey let's make this a sexual relationship now" scene is a thousand times more believable here than it was in the original film, both for how well they play it (Mara again making it so super weird, like a robot having been switched to "fuck") and how hot they both are. You just really wanna watch them do it this time, and there's nothing wrong with that. I do wish he'd have tried an accent since everybody else was, and it would've maybe made Mikael feel like a different kind of "Daniel Craig character" then he's played several times before.

In conclusion, I liked the film a lot. It is too long and the mystery's not gonna blow anybody's mind, but you still can't take your eyes off the screen all the same. Fincher's back on a roll with this and The Social Network after veering into sodden nonsense with Benjamin Button. I hope he does make the sequel, since the Swedish version was nigh unwatchable (I turned it off halfway through) and think he could really make that one even more his own.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen the film yet but I am not sure if I'll like it.
1.I've seen the originals and they weren't that good to begin with.
2. It has american and english actors speaking in funny accents.
3. the girl looks rather boring.
4. Craig suddenly looks 50. I noticed that while I was leaving from the theatre during cowboys and aliens. he looks rather old so unsexy.
5. fincher -for me- hasn't done a good movie since fight club.
by the way. Is David gay by any chance?

Jason Adams said...

I thought Fincher might be gay for a long while but I don't think so anymore. Rumors are he and Mara are getting pretty cozy these days.

I think age is only making Craig look sexier. The wear and tear only adds to his rough-hewn I will fuck you sideways appeal.

The original films were terrible, I will give you that. But that doesn't mean something good can't be made from them!