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Canberra Today 18°/23° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (MA) ? ? ?

COMPARING this English-language version of the first volume of Stieg Larsen’s Millennium Trilogy with its original Swedish filming, which runs six minutes less, is unproductive.

As in the vocabulary of lawyers wanting to impress clients, res ipsa loquitor. Each version speaks for itself.

Daniel Craig is very sound as Blomkvist. Rooney Mara is excellent as Lisbeth Salander. Christopher Plummer is a dignified Henrik Vanger. As his brother Martin, Stellan Skarsgaard saves his performance’s best (and the character’s worst) until its last.

Robin Wright is cool as Erika, Blomkvist’s publishing partner. Joely Richardson is appropriately tense as Anita Vanger. As that nasty piece of work Lawyer Bjurman, Yorick van Wageningen does a cracking good job of making us want to vomit.

Director David Fincher’s staging of the story as laid down in Steven Zaillian’s adaptation of the novel, often seems to be trying to avoid accusations of imitation, but his treatment of action passages and locations (particularly winter exteriors) is impressive.

Is this English-language remake worth seeing so hot on the heels of the original? For those who find reading subtitles a burden, the answer is probably “yes”.

Might there be remakes of the second and third? If the box office for this one is strong, the answer is “possibly”.

At all cinemas

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Ian Meikle, editor

Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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