The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

My wife was actually much more excited to see David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo than I was. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to see it. I want to see any new David Fincher movie. But I get nervous about seeing movies with particularly brutal violence, such as rape and torture. Sometimes I chicken out entirely. I've got to say, though, I'm glad I didn't chicken out, because I found that I enjoyed the movie way more than I thought I would.

For those who don't know, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a murder mystery thriller about Mikel Blomqvist (Daniel Craig), a recently disgraced Swedish investigative journalist hired by an old millionaire (Christopher Plummer) to figure out who in his family murdered a niece he was close with 40 years prior. His life soon collides with Lisbeth Salander, a tough, brilliant, but emotionally shut-down hacker who has been more than once been sexually and physically abused by men in her life.

So, was my initial hesitance justified? Not really. Well, kind of. There are multiple rape scenes in the movie, and they're pretty intense and brutal and not for the weak of heart. But whenever I'm nervous about a movie like this, I almost always find that my constitution for this sort of thing on film is a lot stronger than it is in my imagination.

I've read the original Stieg Larsson novel that this movie is based on, but I haven't seen the original Swedish film. I should probably check it out, I suppose. I liked the novel but didn't love it. It was definitely a page-turner when the thriller aspect was going, but there were long stretches that I just didn't find all that interesting. David Fincher actually did a great job of weeding out those parts. There are several scenes of them simply researching old photos and files, but Fincher manages to draw you in and keep it engaging. The story actually continues in the book for 150 pages or so after the huge climactic mystery-solving scene. In the movie, that stuff is thankfully reduced to about a half hour or so. It's still a lot of movie after the story is seemingly over, but I felt like it really drove home that the story is more about the relationship between Blomqvist and Salander than the murder they're investigating.

I liked Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in the leads. I'm unable to compare the two of them to the original actors who played them, which may have worked to my benefit. My wife has seen the original and she says both sets of leads are good in different ways.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a pretty great thriller, and it grew on me even more over time. I've probably thought about it more than I've thought about all the other movies I've seen the last few weeks. Zodiac is my favorite of all of David Fincher's films (in fact, one of my favorite films of the last decade), and I think he applied some similar techniques to this film. Certainly the whole making research interesting thing.

If you're not a movie wuss like I am, you should totally check out The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Even if you are, maybe you should give it a shot. I did, and it totally paid off. I hope that it does well enough and that they can lure Fincher back for the sequel, because the story is a great match with Fincher's sensibilities, and Lisbeth Salander is a truly unique and interesting character.

Cowboys and Aliens

Hey, look, I'm back! Sorry I haven't been around much, I've been moving. It will still be another week or so before I start getting these reviews up on a more regular basis. And now, on to the review.

A couple years ago, when they announced Cowboys & Aliens as Jon Favreau's movie after Iron Man 2, I was pretty excited. Throw in a script worked on by the cocreator of Lost, Damon Lindelof, executive producer Steven Spielberg, and stars Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, and I thought we might be in for a real treat.

Cut to this summer, when all the promotional materials started coming out for Cowboys & Aliens. The trailer was alright, I guess, but it looked so... serious. The posters didn't look very interesting at all. Is that the stars of the movie photoshopped onto the Independence Day poster in place of the White House? Hell, even the 7-11 cups looked bland. Come on, Hollywood! Is this what you call hype?

I still held out hope for the movie. I've seen much worse advertising for what turned out to be good movies before. I've liked every Favreau film so far, to some degree. Plus, what a cool idea. Cowboys.... and Aliens! It's like Cowboys & Indians, but instead of boring old Indians, it's ALIENS! Still, I couldn't help but feel a little bit underwhelmed and unexcited for the movie itself.

Finally, a couple days ago, I saw the movie. And, sad to say, the promotional materials do a pretty decent job of representing the movie. It's a little sad, because I really felt like the filmmakers, writers, and stars all really did try to do something new and a little bit different. Swing and a miss.

The big risk they took was taking it all so damn seriously, a risk that I don't think paid off. The inherent absurdity of the title is completely ignored. There's no sense of adventure or fun. There isn't even a comic relief character, a role I was sure would be filled by Sam Rockwell. Daniel Craig plays his role as a stone-faced, no-nonsense tough guy. The role of the hero in a movie like this might have been better served by someone who knows how to wink a little at the audience, like Robert Downey Jr. (who the role was originally offered to) or Harrison Ford in his Indiana Jones heyday.

The rest of the cast do their best, but the serious tone set by Favreau and Craig flatten everybody else. All of these actors have demonstrated an ability to have fun with a role and elevate a movie, but aren't really allowed to in this one. My favorite characters were actually the sheriff and the preacher, played by Keith Carradine and Clancy Brown. Though neither were in it much, these guys actually felt way more at home in the western setting than their A-List costars.

Storywise, the movie did manage to hold my attention. There is a mystery at play, of Daniel Craig's identity, and of the intentions of the aliens, and it is slowly revealed via Lost-ian flashback. I wanted to know the answers, and the answers provided actually did have some interesting ideas in them. Jon Favreau is a capable director and storyteller, and I can't say I had any problems with the movie from a visual standpoint.

The aliens themselves were a big disappointment. They're pretty much the standard slimy monsters of all the other big invasion movies. Why are all these higher intelligences always maneating beasts that snarl and don't wear clothes? Wouldn't it be far more interesting if the aliens were more similar to humans? If they were, they could have better reflected our own brutality against the Native Americans as we eradicated them and plundered the land for its resources. Hell, just give them a spoken language and some clothes and we'd be able to see ourselves in them.

Later in the movie, there's a plot development that gave me pause and caused me to think, "whoa, that's pretty ballsy and kind of cool", but then it turned out to be a fakeout plot development that led to another plot development that made me think, "whoa, that's still pretty ballsy, but in the opposite direction". They might have gone a little too far with that one.

So, in the end, Cowboys & Aliens, though it really does try, doesn't really pay off. It didn't work for me, but I've got to give these guys a little credit for attempting something a little off the beaten path. That is, until it finds its way back onto the path with those aliens. It could have done with a little more self awareness, or conversely, if they really want to be taken seriously, a less ridiculous title.