trapp_p

A very disappointing attempt at this story, ideal for a movie. The problem lies in the casting of both the main characters. The books make it quite clear that Mikael is a middle-aged fairly unfit financial journalist - and as such Daniel Craig is completely miscast. He is far too worldly wise and 'dangerous' to fit the picture painted of Mikael in the books. Fine actor, does a great job of playing the part but too macho. 'Lisbeth' is described as being very petite, indeed she is often mistaken for a young boy, and as such Rooney Mara is also a poor fit for the character - particularly if you have seen the Swedish version in which Noomi Rapace is excellent in the part. Again I accept that Rooney played the part well but she looked wrong, she was too tall and didn't fit the image. You could argue that reading the books prior to seeing this film (and seeing all three Swedish films) was a mistake - and that your image of a character may be wrong - but in this case the late Stieg Larsson (who wrote the books) was very clear in his description of the main characters. I note that no attempt has been made to film the other two books - hopefully that will continue. The original Swedish films are excellent, marred by the subtitles of course, and I think that this is the way to enjoy this series of books. The English language version could have been so much better than it turned out.

I have just finished watching 'A Mother's Son' on the ABC in Australia. It was shown as a single 2 hour story and I think that helped maintain the tension. I am at a loss to work out what program one of my fellow reviewers was watching, perhaps the fact that he remembers 'Billy Cotton's Bandstand' is an indication of his age (we are talking 1950's here), but the plot was certainly not 'East Enders' and 'over the top'. The other review pretty well sums up the movie, it was tightly written and extremely well acted. It is typical of the current crop of UK drama, good casts, good scripts and a big dose of conflicting emotions. In many ways it was similar to another excellent production "Broadbeach", although that was a much longer drama and more complicated plot-wise. Room for a lot of extra red herrings. I agree that the tension was well maintained, I could understand the mixed emotions which Rosie felt, although I was pretty sure by half way through that she was backing the wrong horse; her son was the culprit, or at least an accomplice.

Read the other reviews, they summarise all that is bad about this movie. Basically a waste of time and budget, B-grade horror suitable only for a late-night horror channel on TV. Not quite as bad as 'The Thing for the Black Lagoon' (but about 40 years newer) the SFX are woeful and the plot is predictable, including the punchline..... (if that is what it is supposed to be). It is what I think is called a 'cliff-hanger' - allowing you to continue the plot line later - if there is interest. In the case of this movie a sequel would be an act of insanity. Apparently I need 10 lines to submit this review so here is the tenth one.