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Subscribe to weekly newsletter » times & tickets in theaters Fandango Search movie Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close showtimes and buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Flowers of War tickets. Haywire The King of Devil's Island BY ROGER EBERT / December 19, 2011 Mulberry Child Norwegian Wood about us The success of the heroine Pina Lisbeth Salander suggests Red Tails About the site » a hunger in audiences for cast & credits Wages of Fear an action picture hero who Site FAQs » is not a white 35ish male Lisbeth Salander Rooney Mara more current releases » Mikael Blomkvist Daniel Craig with stubble on his chin. one-minute movie reviews Contact us » Such characters are often Henrik Vanger Christopher effective, but they Plummer Email the Movie sometimes seem on loan still playing Answer Man » Martin Vanger Stellan Skarsgard from other films. There are Erika Berger Robin Wright few characters anywhere Anita Vanger Joely Richardson The Adventures of Tintin like Salander, played here America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments on sale now by Rooney Mara and by Anonymous Columbia Pictures presents a film Noomi Rapace in the Answers to Nothing directed by David Fincher. Written original 2009 Swedish The Artist picture. Thin, stark, by Steven Zaillian, based on the Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey haunted, with a look that book by Stieg Larsson. Running Boy Wonder crosses goth with S&M, she time: 158 minutes. Rated R (for Carnage is fearsomely intelligent and brutal violent content including The Conquest Contraband emotionally stranded. rape and torture, strong sexuality, A Dangerous Method graphic nudity, and language). The Descendants It has been a fascination The Double Printer-friendly » Buy now » with the lean, fierce Elite Squad: The Enemy Within Salander that draws me into E-mail this to a friend » Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close the "Girl" movies. We know Flowers of War horrible things happened to Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life her earlier in life that Garbo the Spy explain her anger and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo proud isolation. Her apartment in Stockholm is like an eagle's aerie. Happy Feet Two She has an isolated life online, distant relationships with a few other Le Havre technology geeks and a bleak loneliness. One of the undercurrents of Haywire these movies is the very gradual rapport that grows between Lisbeth The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch Buy now » and Mikael Blomkvist, the radical investigative journalist. This is Hugo never the kind of movie where they're going to fall in love. That she Immortals In the Land of Blood and Honey even smiles is a breakthrough. In Time Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life The stories churn in my mind. I've read two of the Stieg Larsson The Iron Lady novels, seen all three of the Swedish films and now am back for my J. Edgar third tour through the first story. It's an odd feeling to be seeing a Jamie and Jessie are Not Together movie that resembles its Swedish counterpart in so many ways, yet is Joyful Noise subtly different under the direction of David Fincher and with a The King of Devil's Island Buy now » screenplay by Steven Zaillian. I don't know if it's better or worse. It Kinyarwanda has a different air. The Last Rites of Joe May Letters from the Big Man Fincher is certainly a more assured director than Niels Arden Oplev, The Lie who did the 2009 Swedish film. Yet his assurance isn't always a plus. Like Crazy The earlier film had a certain earnest directness that seemed to raise Martha Marcy May Marlene Melancholia the stakes. Emotions were closer to the surface. Rooney Mara and Miss Minoes Noomi Rapace both create convincing Salanders, but Rapace seems Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol more uneasy in her skin, more threatened. As the male lead Mikael Mulberry Child Blomkvist, Michael Nyqvist seemed less confident, more threatened. The Muppets Buy now » In this film, Daniel Craig brings along the confidence of James Bond. My Week with Marilyn How could he not? He looks too comfortable in danger. New Year's Eve Newlyweds The labyrinth of the story remains murky. The elderly millionaire Norwegian Wood Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), cut off from the mainland on Oranges and Sunshine the family island, yearns to know how his beloved niece Harriet died Outrage 40 years ago. Because apparently neither she nor her body left the Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory island on the day she disappeared, and no trace has ever been Pariah found, suspicion rests on those who were there that day, in particular Passione Paul Goodman Changed My Life other Vanger relatives whose houses overlook Henrik's from their Buy now » Pina own isolation. Raiders of the Lost Ark Red Tails They provide a snaky group of suspects. Many seem involved in Revenge of the Electric Car corruption. Some have pasts with Nazi connections. Mikael arranges The Rum Diary their photos and newspaper clippings and file cards in a collage Shame pinned to a wall and connected with red lines of speculation, but his Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows threads of suspicion seem to lead to … everyone. Silent Souls The Sitter In this film more than the original, the stories of Mikael and Lisbeth The Son of No One Buy now » are kept separate for an extended period. We learn about the girl's Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview state-appointed guardian (Yorick van Wageningen), who abused her, Sundance shorts 2012 stole from her and terrorized her. Her attempts to avenge herself That Girl in Yellow Boots 3 would make a movie of their own. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Tower Heist Zaillian's script comes down to a series of fraught scenes between The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 his leads and a distinctive gallery of supporting characters, given Tyrannosaur weight by Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright and the iconic London Urbanized actor Steven Berkoff. These people inhabit a world with no boring A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas Buy now» people. By providing Mikael with his own small cottage on the island, Wages of Fear Henrik Vanger isolates him in a vulnerable situation, which sinks in as War Horse he realizes he's probably sharing the island with a murderer. We Bought a Zoo The Wise Kids There's also the problem of why Henrik continues to receive The Women on the 6th Floor watercolors of wildflowers on his birthday, a tradition that his niece The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner began and inexplicably has continued after her death. If you subtract Young Adult Young Goethe in Love computers, geeks, goth girls, nose piercings, motorcycles and dragon tattoos, what we have at the bottom is a classic Agatha Christie plot. more current releases » The island works as a sealed room. I realize most people will be Buy now» seeing the story for the first time with this version. Because it worked for me, I suspect it will work better for them, because everything will on dvd be new. I'm happy to have seen both. If I had a choice of seeing one or the other for the first time, I'd choose the 2009 version. It seems new on dvd closer to the bone, with a less confident surface. Even the Swedish dialogue adds to the effect; in English, the characters are concealing more new on dvd » secrets but not so uncannily concealing themselves. coming on dvd

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