The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The book is always better than the film, right? Actually, in this case I would just say different. You can't really expect to squish 600 pages into 2.5 hours anyway. The girl in question (Lisbeth Salander) is a loner, computer hacker who works as a researcher for a security company. She just wants to do her job and be left alone. And while she is the title character, the story is not about Lisbeth. Instead, it is about the investigation by a journalist into a 40 year old murder. The murdered person is Harriet Vanger (of the Swedish industrial giant Vanger family) and the person paying for the investigation is Henrik Vanger (Harriet's uncle and former Vanger group CEO). The twist is that the murder is basically a locked room mystery, the event happening while the entire family was isolated on an island, with no body or evidence ever recovered. As the mystery unfolds, Lisbeth becomes involved in the investigation and some of her mysterious background is revealed along with that of the Vanger family. It should be noted that much of this background is pretty horrific (we are talking serial killer and ritual abuse here) and graphic. As a murder mystery/thriller, the film holds together really well. The pace is good and the revelations are timely. And Lisbeth as the title character, it seems, is really being set up in this installment as the protagonist for the remainder of the trilogy. Based rather carefully on the book of the same title by Stieg Larsson, I look forward to continuing the story.
4-stars (out of 5)