The Movie
When a disgraced Swedish journalist's life is falling apart after a very public lawsuit, a super-rich, super-old industrialist reaches out with a strange offer: to put his investigative skills to work, solving the 40-year-old murder of a young girl. The suspects are the aged man's flesh and blood, contenders for the worst family in Sweden, and progress is slow and somewhat tedious until they hire The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as a research assistant, and then the case becomes very interesting.
Well, maybe I'm being too generous there. Despite an Academy Award for editing, the pacing here can be quite slow (did it really need to be two-and-a-half hours?), which helps to establish mood if not excitement. Hero and heroine don't even team up until well into the movie, until which time he moves closer to the truth but she continues to reveal more and more of her character in ways unrelated to the main plot. Maybe that worked in the bestselling book, but here...
Which is not to say that Rooney Mara did not earn her Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander, the Girl of the title: Quite the opposite, she completely transforms herself into a brilliant, beautiful, miserable badass, well worth the cost of a rental all by herself. For more on this story, read Joe Lozito's review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
The Picture
One thing we can now be assured of with a David Fincher movie, the Blu-ray will look spectacular. Shot by Jeff Cronenweth on digital video, the 2.4:1 Dragon Tattoo boasts exquisitely nuanced, organic blacks within the duo's now-distinctive array of colors. The picture is remarkably clean and stable throughout, with no instances of noise or artifacts worth mentioning.
The Sound
The sound design by frequent collaborator Ren Klyce integrates the rears as effortlessly as most mixers call upon the mains, at times taking on their own atmospheric life. The locales aren't really that exotic, but each is well-established sonically, underscored by the requisite low-end power. The notes of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' music are pleasingly clear within the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, not necessarily showoff material but most excellent when taken as a whole. I did however find some lines of dialogue difficult to understand, owing to accents and performance.
The Extras
The movie Blu-ray packs a single audio commentary by Fincher, flying solo, but the second disc carries hours of exclusive bonus content for us to dig through. After a brief overview, we can learn more about the main characters, with special attention paid to Mara's Salander from a variety of perspectives. The Sweden and Hollywood locations are explored, and the post-production section includes a multi-angle breakdown of the title sequence. The promotion gallery offers not just the de rigueur trailers but a mock news show (nine minutes) in deliberate standard definition with optional commentary, and more.
These many extras are executed with producer David Prior's welcome sense of humor. Just do yourself a big favor and don't watch any of them until after you've finished watching the film.
Disc Three is a cleverly designed DVD of the movie, with the commentary. Also here is a unique printed code to access an UltraViolet version for streaming via The Cloud.
Final Thoughts
Well into the 21st century as we are, we've seen a lot of mysteries come and go, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a good one... but is it a great one? Visually and sonically it certainly rises above the pack, and the copious bonus materials will no doubt have even greater appeal to fans of the The Millennium Trilogy.
Product Details
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