It shouldn't come as a surprise that there's already talk of an American remake for Niels Arden Oplev's serial killer hit. After all, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is the most successful Swedish film of all time, so why shouldn't Hollywood be salivating at the prospect of taking it for a spin with the no-subtitle crowd? Based on the novel by the late Stieg Larsson—the first in the so-called Millennium Trilogy—"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is steeped in Larsson's self-professed love for American crime fiction. It is, at its heart, a potboiler, and Oplev embraces its essence unabashedly, introducing us to Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a disgraced journalist sent to prison for slander after publicly accusing the CEO of a financial institution of serious crimes. Half a year before he's to begin serving his three-month prison term, Blomkvist is approached by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), a wealthy retired businessman, to help solve a decades-old case concerning his sixteen-year-old niece, Harriet, who disappeared without a trace. Intrigued by the mystery (and a high pay grade), and not wanting to cause his employers any further embarrassment by his presence, Blomkvist agrees to investigate the case. Along the way he meets and enlists the help of an enigmatic young hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), who has a troubled past and lives under the thumb of a reprehensible guardian. Together they uncover a link between Harriet and a series of ritualistic, religiously motivated murders. As they work to unearth the past, it becomes clear that someone doesn't want them to find any answers.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a cheaply entertaining piece of pulp hackery, a beach read in cinematic form. There's nothing new under the sun here. Oplev uses every tired trick in the book: red herrings abound, and shadowy figures dart across the frame accompanied by quick musical exclamations. It's a dime-store paperback novel brought to life only to walk the well-trod path of every serial killer drama that came before it. To its credit, however, it never tries to be anything more. As a lurid distraction for midnight-movie cable channel surfers, it works just fine. It knows its place and it stays there, even if it never quite earns its bloated 152-minute runtime. The clichés come thick and fast (can we please retire the whole "villain reveals dastardly plot when he thinks he has the upper hand" device now?), but while his bag of tricks may be old hat, Oplev keeps the film consistently entertaining. It doesn't hold a candle, however, to the similarly themed but far superior Red Riding trilogy, whose segments are models of how to transcend generic material. One has to wonder just how different a Hollywood version of this film can be. It already has all the trappings of a big-budget Hollywood thriller, except it's in Swedish rather than English. Maybe Lisbeth won't sodomize a sadistic anal rapist with a giant dildo? Who knows? It will doubtlessly retain its tawdry gumshoe kitsch, but given its origins, it really shouldn't be any other way.

==Written by Matthew Lucas==

==From: In Review Online (www.inreviewonline.com)==

Translated as “Men Who Hate Women” and known as the English title “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Män som hatar kvinnor is a dark and atmospheric Swedish thriller based on the novel by Stieg Larsson about a journalist and his unlikely encounter with a young female hacker. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) is the journalist who is found guilty of a crime that he did not commit. He’s soon sought by a wealthy elderly man for his expertise in investigating in hopes to find answers to an old missing person case.

A young rebellious hacker named Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) is a delinquent who works for the security company hired to get information about Mikael. Becoming intrigued, perhaps obsessed to an extent, with Mikael, Lisbeth continues to track him until they eventually meet. The two team up to solve the case only to find themselves caught in a family’s long line of dark and dirty secrets.

The standout character in this film is Lisbeth, who has built quite a hard shell as a result of constantly being abused throughout her life. Noomi Rapace plays this character extraordinarily well, to the point that we feel her pain and experiences. The character of Lisbeth is by far the most fascinating character, be it in a book or movie, that I can recall in quite some time. Her mysterious nature is intriguing, while her tech-savviness is both exciting and relevant in today’s world. Nyqvist is equally impressive as the zealous investigator. The rest of the cast does outstandingly well also, bringing eerie realism to this drama. The heartlessness of the villains portrayed in the film is sure to leave one with an ill feeling.

The picture itself has great direction from Oplev. He really captures a certain feeling of the cold and bleak locale which so hauntingly ads to the film’s mysteriousness. The film can be graphic and unsettling at times during scenes involving violence and sexual assault (which are far from exploitive) but necessarily so to illustrate the pain and suffering endured by our characters. The dark mood is offset by the developing bond between our main characters and their own personal growth. It’s longer runtime goes unnoticed by including plenty of clues combined with nicely executed action that only makes one want more.

The film is a captivating crime thriller that is brilliantly played out and is sure to have viewers feeling all sorts of emotions throughout. I’ve not yet read this or any of the other books from Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, however this film has greatly prompted my interest. The film sheds light on the all too real world of men who hate women, if only there were more people like Mikael and Lisbeth to bring them to justice. On a side note, as I’ve mentioned in my rant regarding English-language remakes, this film is in talks to be given an American remake in the near future. While if done right the remake could be good, it’s highly advisable to check out this beautiful Swedish masterpiece in its original form.

==Written by Nicolas ==

==From: Critic Nic (www.criticnic.com)==

Fans of Stieg Larsson's Men Who Hate Women may have been concerned about how the Swedish author's novel would translate to the screen, but they needn't have worried. Significant changes to the source material have been made, but director Niels Arden Opley's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as it's now called, is mostly riveting. As the story begins, middle-aged investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has just been convicted of a bogus charge of libel against a rich and corrupt corporate hotshot when he's unexpectedly offered a most unusual gig. An aging captain of industry named Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) wants Blomkvist to figure out what happened to Vanger's niece, who disappeared more than 40 years earlier; not only is the old man convinced that she was murdered, but he suspects that another member of his large and rather disagreeable family (which includes several former Nazis) is the culprit. Blomkvist takes the job, which includes spending at least six months on Vanger's isolated island in the middle of winter. But what he doesn't know is that he's being spied on by twentysomething Lisbeth Salander (brilliantly played by Noomi Rapace in a career-making performance), the titular Girl and the possessor of remarkable skills as a sleuth and computer hacker. With her gothlike piercings and all-black clothes, Lisbeth is a vivid character, to say the least. While we don't exactly know the details of her dark past, it's obviously still with her; indeed, she's just been assigned a new "guardian" (like a parole officer) to look after her finances and other matters. We also know that she is not someone to mess with; when the guardian turns out to be a thoroughly vile monster, Lisbeth gets back at him in one of the more satisfying revenge sequences in recent memory. That Lisbeth and Mikael should end up working together, and more, isn't especially surprising. But the horrifying details and depths of depravity they uncover while working on the case (parallels to The Silence of the Lambs are facile but appropriate) definitely are, and Opley does a nice job of keeping it all straight. At more than two and a half hours, the film is long, with its share of grim, graphic, and scary moments, but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a winner. --Sam Graham