Brian Vs. Movies

With the recent announcement of the 2011 Oscar nominations, I took a few moments to figure out what 2011 movies I need to watch before the big awards show.  I don't necessarily like to just watch the good movies, though; my annual best-of list includes the best and the worst of the year.  Upon reflection, however, I realized that my hatred for Sucker Punch was skewing this year's list.  I needed another suitable contender for my Worst Movie of the Year award.  But what could possibly contend with the Punch?  And then I remembered Abduction.

I wish this was my reaction to Abduction

Abduction begins with Nathan (Taylor Lautner) being one crayzee dude, riding on the hood of his buddy's truck the entire way to a huge house party.  Whoa, man!  That shows attitude and baditude!  This movie has character development coming out its ears!  And it has great dialogue, too.

Example: "He who smelt it dealt it"

The first line (that isn't "Woooo!") is "Let's go, baby, we got bitches waiting!"  I love when an opening scene gives me an accurate idea of how good the rest of the film will be.  At the party, one of Nathan's friends (Denzel Whitaker) momentarily stops binge drinking to sell some fake IDs to other party-goers.  Wait...what?  Yes, despite the apparent ease with which the characters got alcohol, they are all supposed to be teens.  To be fair, at least the actors playing the teens are all either teens or in their early twenties, so this isn't as obnoxious as it can be in films.  That doesn't really have much to do with the rest of the movie, but it stuck out to me.  Anyway, Nathan is assigned a school project with his neighbor, Karen (Lily "My dad's Phil" Collins), which has them looking into child abductions.  This assignment guides them to the wonders of the interweb, where they find a website that takes child photos and runs them through a computer-generated aging process.  On that website, Nathan and Karen find one abduction victim who is projected to look exactly like Taylor Lautner!  Or, possibly the guy from The Hunger Games.  Or some other teenager with dark hair.  OMG, IDK, ROTFL, WTF.  No wonder Nathan doesn't look like the people who raised him (the fairly pasty Maria Bello and Jason Isaacs); he was abductioned kidnapped!  Nathan contacts the website, but is put off by their odd questions ("What is your location?  What are you wearing?"); it turns out that the website is run by terrorists, who were waiting to find Nathan for some reason.  A few hours later, Nathan's "parents" are dead, and he finds himself on the run from international black ops agents, the CIA, and --- cue dramatic music --- his past.

Cue glower

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  This movie is awful.  It's not just that Taylor Lautner is incapable of mimicking human emotion, there is so much more that is wrong with Abduction.  For starters, let's look at the conspiracy that is in place.  The basic premise here is that Nathan is being raised by people who are not his parents invaluable to international terrorists.  So that whole subplot of Nathan being a child who was abducted...?  That gets debunked pretty early in the film, which makes this one of the least accurately titled movies I can recall.  It's like calling Back to the Future "Late For School."  Still, terrorists want to find Nathan to use him as a bargaining chip so they could get...something.  To find Nathan, they created and actively maintained several websites that claimed lil' Nathan was abducted.  The odds of any of these sites getting a bite from their precise target is infinitesimal, but the sites are actively monitored by a trained black ops agent at all times.  Really?  You don't outsource that to some nerd?  You give that job to the same guy who is leading the first attempt to capture the target, once he is located?  Really?  And what are the odds of the website-monitoring location being close enough to Nathan's house for the monitoring guy to grab a partner, dress up like a cop and show up at Nathan's doorstep within maybe three hours?

Thankfully, Abduction has many instances where that logic seems downright plausible, when compared to the rest of the movie.  Let's say that you're the CIA agent (played by Alfred Molina) tasked with tracking down Nathan before the terrorists.  Ignoring the fact that the CIA probably wouldn't legally lead a manhunt on US soil for a non-terrorist American citizen, let's say that you finally catch up with the boy: what do you do?  Take him to a secure location?  Bug out of the area as quickly as possible, because the terrorists are close behind?  Give him a disguise and help him go underground?
If you answered "D: commandeer a mom-and-pop burger joint and sit the highly valuable target by a large glass window," then you are apparently smart enough to apply for a job in the CIA.  Not surprisingly, "D" turns out to be a poor choice.  The odd logic of Abduction doesn't stop there, but getting any more in-depth will just give me a headache.

The acting in Abduction suffers from the presence of its two leads.  This is the first time I have seen Taylor Lautner on screen for more than a few moments and he is just shockingly bad.  I'll give him some credit; it appears that he can memorize most of his dialogue.  But he's just awful!  You know how most actors will show emotion in their parts, and will carry that emotion from dialogue chunk to dialogue chunk or even (if they're mildly competent) from scene to scene?  That ability is light years beyond what this guy can pull off convincingly.  I hope he invests that Twilight money wisely, because he won't be on the cover of Tiger Beat forever.  Lily Collins isn't as bad as Lautner, but she's still a long way off from being good here.  Granted, her character is written as a typical girl-next-door crush, but she's awkward and whiny and...well...okay, maybe she acts like a real none-too-bright teen would in a similarly outlandish situation.  That still doesn't make her pleasant to watch or explain the caterpillars on her face.

Maybe she's trying to reform Oasis?

None of the adult cast really get enough screen time to balance the awfulness that is Taylor Lautner.  Maria Bello was halfway decent.  Jason Isaacs was surprisingly likable, especially when he was living out the fantasy of Abduction viewers --- he got to beat the crap out of his "son."  Alfred Molina was wasted in a stupid supporting role, while Sigourney Weaver got to play an annoying character in a stupid supporting role.  Michael Nyqvist was suitably foreign and evil-looking as the lead terrorist/bad guy black ops agent, but it takes quite a bit more than that to make an entertaining villain. 

The blank stare of evil

Elisabeth Röhm randomly showed up as Nathan's real mother; surprisingly, this was not a speaking part.  Dermot Mulroney had an uncredited part toward the end, and now that I've seen this movie, I think "uncredited" was the way to go.

Abduction was directed by John "I was relevant in 1991" Singleton, although "directed" might be a strong term.  Sure, part of the fault lies with the paper-thin script from first-time full-feature screenwriter Shawn Christensen, but Singleton is simply a hack here.  Do you like goofy editing (best example: the reveal of the CGI-aged Nathan)?  How about poor use of camera tricks?  And one-dimensional acting?

Literally phoning it in

Yeah, John Singleton delivers on all fronts.  What bothered me most about his direction in this movie was that it is so far from playing to his strengths.  Singleton's best films (Boyz n the Hood and Baby Boy, in my opinion) have a fairly nice but uncharismatic lead actor surrounded by colorful characters; they're dramas that focus on (fairly) small-level dramas that he blows up to big-time drama.  Abduction is an action movie that should have been a tense thriller.  I love the idea of not trusting the people who raised you, but that concept (the best part of this plot) is jettisoned almost immediately for a dull, substandard chase movie.  Oh, and John Singleton can't film an entertaining fight scene to save his life.

Does anything go right in Abduction?  Well...it's not so bad that you spend the movie hating everyone involved.  It's utter crap, though, make no mistake.



Here are a few of my favorite moments from Abduction:

• One of the reasons Nathan is convinced that he was abducted is because he recognized the shirt in the maybe-him child photo on the website.  Okay, fine.  To prove his suspicions are correct, Nathan looks for and finds this unremarkable, fifteen-plus years old shirt in a matter of minutes.  So...A) his "parents" held on to his pre-abducted belongings? B) a teenager knows exactly where his toddler clothes are stored and remembers them, down to the stains? C) his family held on to his toddler clothes instead of giving them away or selling them at garage sales, like every other American family?
• When Nathan asks his "mom" if she is his mother, she says "...No."  Well, that was easy.
• Terrorists looking to kidnap Nathan place a bomb in the kitchen oven, and it is working on a timer.  Maybe they should have acted like they were in a hurry then, hmm?
• Abduction is amazing with the ridiculous amounts of perfect timing and manhours used by the CIA.  A phone call to 911 goes directly to the CIA, without an operator putting Nathan on hold.  Within moments of being spotted on a security camera, underlings are on the scene, giving chase.  And yet...two dumb teenagers manage to avoid capture for days.
• The bad guy threatened to kill all of Nathan's Facebook friends.  
• My wife summed up the first half of the movie with "also, so far, Taylor Lautner's a dick."
• The bad guy steals Nathan's gun by reaching just under his crotch in a quick and sneaky manner.
• The movie ends with a Train song.  Because the movie wasn't bad enough on its own.

Mission: Impossible is kind of a strange series.  The first film, directed fifteen years ago by Brian "subtlety's my middle name" De Palma, was an entertaining but logically dubious special effects feature with quadruple crosses galore.  The second film, directed by John "I rape subtlety for breakfast" Woo, was a ridiculously over-the-top and incredibly stupid tribute to slow motion effects; it also featured a theme song by Limp Bizkit.  Ugh.  The third film, directed by J.J. "Blue F'n Lights" Abrams, went back to basics, but narrowed the scope down so far that it felt more like an awesome TV show than a blockbuster movie.  Honestly, I didn't have high hopes for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the fourth entry in the franchise.  It's not that I haven't enjoyed the other movies in the series--- they are entertaining for what they are --- but experience warns against the probability of a fourth movie in a franchise being good.  There are a few facts about Ghost Protocol that indicate that it may fare better than, say, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  First of all, this is the first live-action feature film directed by Brad Bird, who wrote and directed one of my favorite films of the past decade, The Incredibles.  Second, despite being a blockbuster, this was not filmed in 3D, but in IMAX; I may be petty, but 3D still feels like a gimmick in most films and, as Christopher Nolan has proved, IMAX can make some awesome special effects scenes breathtaking.  Finally, Ghost Protocol makes sure to keep the heroes from donning the ridiculously perfect Mission: Impossible masks that have plagued the series so far.  But is that enough to make this fourth volume worth watching?

Look!  An actual disguise!  Times have changed since 2000.

The plots of Mission: Impossible movies can be nosebleed-inducing if examined in too much detail, so I'll try to keep this relatively simple.  A bad guy, Kurt Hendricks, (the Swedish Millennium Trilogy's hero, Michael Nyqvist) wants to start a nuclear war.  That's bad.  Worse, he has framed the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) for an international catastrophe, so the entire organization and its agents have been officially disbanded and disavowed.  Specifically, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and friends have been framed for said international catastrophe, so they top the international wanted list.  Of course, they are the only ones who realize that Hendricks is planning to ruin the world, so they need to stop him.  They are all alone, without their usual bag 'o' tricks to help them and without international government support for their actions.  But that's why it's called an impossible mission, right?

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was never designed to be an acting Goliath, but it's not half bad.  While it certainly won't net Tom Cruise the Oscar he obviously desires so desperately, I thought he was perfectly fine in this movie.  His character is clever and pretty bad-ass, without much angst or annoying principles to get in the way.  Simon Pegg returns for a second film, and he once again provides comic relief as the nervous tech guy.  I like Pegg, but I wish he would try something a little different in his next big budget movie.  I wasn't too impressed by Paula Patton, though; she had a sizable role and had the opportunity to be sexy, conflicted, and awesome, but was missing something --- depth, for starters --- to make her character work.

Meh

A lot was made of Jeremy Renner being added to the cast of Ghost Protocol,  with rumors suggesting him as a possible heir to headline the franchise when Cruise is finished.  If so, this isn't the movie that will make that happen.  Renner is perfectly fine, but he doesn't steal any scenes and just hints at his character's potential --- he's supposedly an Ethan Hunt-level bad-ass with an analyst's mind --- instead of doing anything particularly awesome.

I said "awesome," not "a clear homage to M:I I"

Lost alumni Josh Hamilton (who I barely recognized without his signature long locks) makes a brief appearance as a good guy, but he doesn't get a chance to do much.  The good guys also had some brief appearances from Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, and Tom Wilkinson; of the three, Wilkinson had the most to work with and was the most fun to watch, if only because his character defied the expectations of a bureaucrat in a Mission: Impossible movie.  As for the baddies, Anil Kapoor was fairly entertaining as a bumbling sex fiend; I will admit that I found Kapoor especially fun to watch because his hair and beard reminded me of a friend who works for NBC.  Léa Seydoux got to look disinterested and sexy as an assassin, but how hard is that if you're already bored and French?  As for the main villain, Michael Nyqvist was given surprisingly little to say or do.  Sure, he has a crazy scheme, but he doesn't talk much and --- aside from his final fight scene --- doesn't do much in the film.  I'm not slighting the man, even though he looks ready for a nap, despite having a nuclear holocaust on its way any minute.

In all fairness, Nyqvist was never meant to be the draw for this film.  Mission: Impossible has never been about the villains, so much as it has been about having high stakes and fantastically elaborate stealth and action missions to pull off something even more ludicrously difficult.

That's what I'm talking about!

So, how are the ridiculous action and stealth sequences?  Pretty well done.  As usual, Tom Cruise is the centerpiece for most of these scenes, and he showcases why he is such a big damn action star.  It doesn't matter how ridiculous the premise behind a scene is, Cruise commits to making the action as bad-ass as possible.  And it usually works.

Even Cruise being chased by sand turns out to be decently cool

It would be hard to argue that the action in Ghost Protocol is anything but top notch, and I also enjoyed the film's sneaky moments, too.  The combination of unusual set pieces and exotic locales really helped keep this entry in the series from being boring.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is the first live-action directorial effort from Brad Bird.  He did a pretty good job.  The pacing of the film was fantastic, the action sequences were very well done, and the story wasn't too convoluted.  Heck, even the scenes that looked stupid in the movie trailer turned out to be pretty cool in the feature film.

Case in point

There aren't any impressive acting performances in the movie, but nobody was distractingly bad, either. 

As fun as Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is, it's not quite a complete victory lap.  I understand that Ethan Hunt is the main character in the series, but it is getting a little old, watching him do all the ridiculously hard stuff while his team is given fairly remedial tasks.  The action in this film maybe nonstop, but I would have liked to have been surprised by a truly awesome action sequence that showcased another character.  I was happy to find that this film's plot didn't rely too heavily on the earlier movies, but the mystery behind Ethan Hunt wasn't as fascinating as the script had hoped.  All in all, this is a fast and fun action movie, but it is missing that special something --- a fantastic villain, a more charismatic hero, an iconic plot twist, etc. --- to make it truly great.  Still, I would argue that this is in a close race for the best entry in the Mission: Impossible series.

Well, that was quick.  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third and final film in the Millennium Trilogy, based on the books by Steig Larsson; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire also had American theatrical releases in 2010.  I think it is worth pointing out that this film's title was changed for American audiences.  The Swedish title was Luftslottet Som Sprängdes, which means "The Air Castle That was Blown Up."  Okie dokie, then.


Hornet's Nest picks right when Played With Fire ended.  Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is suffering from several gunshot wounds, her evil father, Zalachenko, is suffering from gunshot wounds and an axe to the head, and her evil half-brother, Niedermann (Micke Spreitz), is trying to escape police custody.  Lisbeth and Zalachenko both reach the hospital in time to save their lives, thanks to Lisbeth's reporter friend Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) calling an ambulance in time.  While recovering from brain surgery to remove the bullet in her head, Lisbeth is charged with the attempted murder of her father.  Knowing that Lisbeth doesn't stand a chance against those charges --- with her aggressive goth-punk look, history of alleged mental illness, and cyber-criminal activities, he has a point --- Mikael decides to dedicate an entire issue of his muckraking magazine, Millennium, to proving Lisbeth's innocence.  Things get a bit more complicated when a clandestine government group decides that Zalachenko and Lisbeth must die before they have the chance to talk to the authorities.  The group makes their move and kills Zalachenko, but Lisbeth survived.  Now, this group is pulling all the strings they can to guarantee Lisbeth gets declared "criminally insane" and locked up in the asylum of their choice, attended by doctors that they can trust.  How can Mikael possibly compete with the people behind the people behind the people who stand behind the president?  By being a reporter, of course.

"Does this look like the face of a murderer?"

If you have read the books or seen the other two films, you might notice just how different each story is.  The first movie was a kind of closed-door mystery, the second was a thriller, and this one is a courtroom drama.  The direction and pacing of the movies doesn't change from film to film, but that abrupt change in genre is all the more apparent with the short span of time between the release dates of the films.  The acting in this movie is about the same as the other two; Lisbeth spends a lot of time sulking and being stubborn, so more of the narrative duties fall on Mikael.  Once again, Noomi Rapace is the best thing about the movie, even if her character spent less time active in this film, and Michael Nyqvist turned in another mediocre performance (better than last time, though).  The direction of Daniel Alfredson is simple and efficient, with little time spent on anything that doesn't propel the plot forward.

I had hoped that this film would succeed where so many other "Part 3" movies have failed.  After all, it was filmed and released in the same year as its predecessor, so there was no change in major cast or crew.  And I will give it credit for not trying to out-do the second film.  Instead of trying to top that fast-paced thriller, it opts for a Grisham-esque legal battle.  I thought that was an interesting and unexpected choice, but it ultimately didn't work for me.  The key to a good legal thriller is some sort of reveal, where a key piece of evidence suddenly shows everyone the truth.  This movie doesn't tell us anything new about Lisbeth.  If you saw the first two movies, you have every personal detail that they revealed in the courtroom.  Where were the twists?  Where was the surprise?  This was a whole movie about Lisbeth's life, and it took most of its information from the last movie.  The American title implies that Lisbeth had tempted the fates and gotten herself in trouble, but the fact of the matter is that her character was a victim the entire time.  But if you've watched any of these films, that is obvious already.

The thing that really bugged me was the complete lack of explanation why a secret government group would bother with Lisbeth.  "It's because they brought her father into the country as a Soviet defector."  Yeah, so?  I don't understand what was so dangerous about her that these men went out of their way to harm her.  I'm not saying that there was no feasible reason for this secret group to act the way they did.  I'm saying that it is not explained in the movie.  The villains don't have a motive.  That's either the worst subtitle-job ever, or the filmmakers were inept.  I'm leaning toward the latter.  Why?  Well, there are all sorts of odd details that bothered me in this movie, details that should have been caught in the script stage, but managed to make it in the final product.  For starters, an experienced secret government agent goes to the hospital to kill Lisbeth and Zalachenko; he doesn't use a silencer, a pillow, or even a 20oz soda bottle to dull the sound of the gunshot.  Everyone hears the shot, and there is enough time for someone to help protect Lisbeth.  You don't get to be an elderly covert agent without quietly killing a few people, but this moron brought an extra loud popgun for an assassination job?  That makes no sense.  Also weird: Lisbeth eats pizza by folding the tip back to the crust.  And I thought New Yorkers had it wrong.  That's not really a jab at the movie as a whole, but it bugged me.  For the courtroom scenes, Lisbeth dresses her goth-iest, complete with chains, studs, and spiked accessories.  How is someone in police custody, someone presumed to be crazy, allowed access to potentially dangerous gear?  Again, that makes no sense.

This movie isn't terrible.  The story is told clearly and it helps the characters complete something vaguely resembling an emotional arc (well, Lisbeth does, anyway).  This movie just isn't necessary.  The whole film just feels like falling action from the previous movie, wrapping up loose ends and helping Lisbeth clear her name.  I don't see a need for that to have taken more than half an hour, tops.  Maybe I would feel differently if the bad guys had known motives.  Maybe not.  This third chapter to the Millennium Trilogy is definitely the worst of the bunch.

Why are the headlights still on?

Aww, yeah!  It's Swedish sequel time!  Interesting side note: if you do a Google image search for "Swedish sequel," you may find this.  Hot on the heels of the hit Swedish-language film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the next part of the Millennium Series just hit DVD shelves.  This is the adaptation of Steig Larsson's book of the same name, which was a world-wide best seller.  The film was released just seven months after Dragon Tattoo and just two months before the final entry in the series, so you know these Swedes are trying to hit while the iron's hot.  The budget was slashed for the sequels --- it was assumed by the producers that the sequels would be direct-to-DVD, but the $100 million dollar success of the first film changed that --- which usually isn't a good sign.  How did it turn out?  Let's find out.

Over a year has passed since the events of Dragon Tattoo, and the heroine Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns home to Sweden after a year abroad.  She tries to keep a relatively low profile, partially because she does a lot of illegal computer hacking and partially because she is blackmailing her guardian officer (it's like a parole officer for formerly institutionalized Swedes) into giving her glowing development reviews.  As such, Lisbeth lets her friend and sometime girlfriend, Mia, stay at her old apartment, rent free.  Meanwhile, Lisbeth's old pal Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) and his co-workers at Millenium magazine are preparing an expose into human trafficking and prostitution.  When the reporter who is writing the article is found murdered with his wife, the police are able to trace the gun used back to Lisbeth's guardian officer.  That's good.  But he's dead and Lisbeth's fingerprints are all over the gun.  That's bad.  The police naturally start a womanhunt for Lisbeth, but they aren't the only ones looking for her; some scary dudes involved in the drug trade are also in the hunt.  Hey, Mia, I bet that free apartment doesn't sound so great now.  Mikael decides to use his investigative eye to help Lisbeth, but it is ultimately up to her to find out who has framed her and why.

Like the last film, Played With Fire is fairly plot heavy; unlike the last film, it is less of a mystery and more of a thriller.  Daniel Alfredson takes over the directing chair this time, but I didn't notice any difference in style from the first one.  So, either this is the best sequel ever for maintaining the look and feel of its predecessor, or maybe Swedes just don't have any style.  The acting in this movie is both better and worse than the last film.  Noomi Rapace turns in a far superior performance in this film; she spends some time acting, instead of just posing as a surly Goth chick.  There is almost no screen time shared between Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, which helps build up the strength of her character.  Nyqvist's performance definitely suffered without Rapace's Goth-crazy to fuel him; I would rate him at four out of five on the "dead behind the eyes" scale.  For those scoring at home, a dumb eight year-old in a calculus class gets a one, and these hacks pull a perfect five.  The supporting cast is, surprisingly, a little better this time around, with former boxer Paulo Roberto playing himself (but not Mike Tyson making a cameo, this guy had a substantial role) and Micke Spreitz essentially playing the Swedish version of Kevin Nash's Russian from The Punisher; that means that he is big and blonde, and when he gets hit, he just looks confused instead of hurt.

There is a lot to like in this movie.  I was impressed by how much Roomi Rapace improved from film to film, and I liked her character more this time around.  It helps that she's portrayed as less crazy than in the first film.  I always enjoy seemingly indestructible villains (like Spreitz), so that was fun for me, too.  There is a lot more action and violence in this movie, including some fairly realistic (and still pretty bad ass) moves from Rapace, several gunshot wounds, and somebody getting an axe to the head.  Along with the violence, this movie brings the sex, too, with a moderately graphic (by American standards) lesbian scene.  The film's pace is probably the best thing about it; a lot happens in this movie, including research, but the characters are always moving, which really helps even the slow parts seem active.

Unfortunately, pacing doesn't hide all of the movie's shortcomings.  I am all for films that want the viewers to figure out what is going on, but I didn't appreciate the vast difference between telling Mikael and Lisbeth's parts of the story.  Whenever Michael was going to do something, he explained it first to someone else, and then did it.  Lisbeth would stare at a computer screen and then abruptly choose to do something, sometimes even going to a spot where Mikael had been only a few scenes before.  Yes, I realize that Lisbeth had access to Mikael's computer and was taking information from him and applying it to her own, but I think that explanation could have been mentioned once in the film, at least; there were times where I had to figure out why she was going wherever she was going, and that was distracting.  I wasn't a huge fan of the story itself, although I liked the way it was told; when you boil things down to their core, this is a story that seems more at home in a comic book or a professional wrestling ring than in a thriller.  And, again, I wish the story depended less on Mikael to figure things out, because Nyqvist's emotional range varies from sleepy-eyed indifference to sleepy-eyed mild surprise.  Even with Rapace's performance, this movie sorely misses the feel of genuine acting, as there is little to no need for chemistry between characters when they're just running from place to place.

Overall, I think fans of the book will be just fine with this adaptation.  It is better than it should be, given the budget, and definitely feels like the next chapter in the story.  I don't think the story is nearly as strong this time around, but the frenetic pace almost makes that point moot.  I will admit, though, that I am a sucker for the thriller genre.

Foreign films can be difficult for some people to get into.  I sympathize.  The language barrier can impede the enjoyment of a lot of great films, unless you are able to read subtitles.  If you're moderately literate, then you have no excuse for your laziness.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the Swedish film adaptation of Steig Larsson's book, whose American title is the same as this movie's.  The Swedish title, Män som hatar kvinnor, translates into "Men Who Hate Women."  I guess we can learn two things about this movie from its two titles.  One: this probably isn't about a female martial artist.  **Sigh.**  Two: judging from the Swedish title, this will be a comic romp that will finally introduce Swedish comedy to the world at large.  Get ready for two hours of Swedish Fish jokes and Swedish Chef impressions!  Bork bork bork!

Actually, this is a murder mystery that, for the sake of the mystery, I will just give you the background on.  Recently disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is hired by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to investigate the forty year-old disappearance of his niece, Harriet.  She disappeared from her island home on a day that the only bridge into town was blocked for twelve hours with no one entering or leaving the island.  Her body was never found, and she was never seen again; her last few hours alive are documented through some photographs of a parade that day, but that is basically the only clues that exist.  Henrik suspects a member of his own family for the murder; they are all heirs to the vast Vanger Corporation fortune, but the murder was probably not for monetary reasons.  The Vanger family has many secrets, though, including the fact that three out of the four eldest Vangers were Nazis.  Why does Henrik suspect his own family?  Because, for his birthday, Harriet always gave him a framed pressed flower; for the last forty years, somebody has been sending him similar framed pressed flowers from all over the globe on his birthday.  Knowing how cold and bitter his relatives are, Henrik has concluded that one of them is the killer and is taunting him.

What does this have to do with a dragon tattoo?  Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is a computer hacker that was hired by Vanger's people to check on Mikael before Henrik hired him.  Lisbeth believes that Mikael's recent disgrace was not his own doing, and thanks to her in-depth work, Henrik hires Mikael. Lisbeth is a little weird; she has the fashion sense of a Cure fan and the personality to match.  For whatever reason --- maybe she got a crush on Mikael when she was cyber-stalking him, I don't know --- she decides to hack into his computer and see what he's up to.  She discovers his files on Harriet's murder and decodes a clue.  Trying to be helpful but still Goth, she sends an anonymous email to Mikael with the clue; since he's a clever reporter, he finds a way to backtrack the email to her computer and asks her to help him with the case.  Together, they start to uncover details relating to not only Harriet's disappearance, but evidence pointing to the murders of several young local women over a forty year period.  Oh, and Lisbeth is the girl with the dragon tattoo, in case the word "Goth" didn't clue you in.

I haven't read the book this is based on yet, but I do have some experience with Swedish novels; in my experience, they tend to be pretty straightforward affairs, heavy on plot and relatively light on emotion and style.  That reliance on plot makes stories like this ideal for adapting to the big screen.  The director, Niels Arden Oplev, does a pretty good job telling the story, but I think I appreciated what he left out more than anything else.  This movie has some rape in it.  It's not an I Spit on Your Grave remake, by any means, but that doesn't change my attitude toward rape (for the record: I'm against it).  The rape scene is shot briefly and there is no real nudity, eroticism, or unnecessary grossness shown; it's an ugly act that the director knows the audience would rather see pass quickly, and he thankfully does so.

As far as the acting goes, I was pretty indifferent to Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace throughout the film.  I enjoyed the story, but felt that Nyqvust was particularly bland.  He wasn't awful, but he tended to work on just one level.  Rapace was better as the clearly disturbed Goth chick, but I have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable with her mannish features.  I don't require every female lead in the movies I watch to be supermodel quality, but Rapace has some veiny neck and shoulder muscles, and I was a little creeped out.

This movie was probably better than it should have been.  Apparently, the Swedish film company that made this (and the adaptations for the book's two sequels) assumed that Dragon Tattoo would be the only one of the trilogy to be released in theaters; its popularity allowed all three to hit Swedish theaters in the last year and a half.  That intent implies that these movies were made for relatively small amounts of money, which would explain some of the supporting actor quality.  I thought the cinematography was uninspired, too, because mysteries are always ripe for some cool camera shots that subtly indicate the murderer.  Still, I found the story interesting and the director kept the plot moving, which was appreciated.  This was the best "locked room" mystery I have encountered in quite some time, and I thought the small town full of suspects was a pleasant reminder of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories. This is one foreign film that I think could be improved with a Hollywood remake, so I'm kind of psyched to see the Daniel Craig version next year.