|
|
 |
Alynda Wheat, People: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...no discussion of this film can shy away from its brutality.... unwatchable things happen, primarily to Lisbeth... The satisfaction of 'Dragon Tattoo' is watching Lisbeth realize that she, too, has power." (Read the full review...) 485 words, 12/21/11 Richard Corliss, Time: GOOD "Seeing Fincher's version is like getting a Christmas gift of a book you already have. This edition has a nicer binding and prettier illustrations than your beloved old paperback, but it's essentially a reproduction of the same old 'Dragon.' " (Read the full review...) 1,607 words, 12/23/11 David Germain, Associated Press: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...stark but enthralling... an ideal match of filmmaker and material.... Fincher gives [screenwriter Steven] Zaillian room to let the story and characters reveal themselves slowly." (Read the full review...) 755 words, 12/15/11 Mara Reinstein, Us Weekly: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Fincher turns a humdrum mystery (based on the bestseller) into a series of briskly paced jaw-droppers punctuated by extreme violence... two-plus hours of breathtaking chill." (Read the full review...) 177 words, 12/22/11 Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Fincher teases out the full mythological grandeur of the material.... he has made 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' into an electrifying movie by turning the audience into addicts of the forbidden, looking for the sick and twisted things we can't see." (Read the full review...) 995 words, 12/16/11 Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...brings the dazzle but shortchanges on the daring.... Mara is astonishing as Lisbeth Salander... the film hangs back when you want it to come out swinging. Only Mara lets it bleed.... 'Girl' is gloriously rendered but too impersonal to leave a mark." (Read the full review...) 449 words, 01/06/12 Claudia Puig, USA Today: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...the sum of the parts -- an evocative mood, haunting music and exceptional ensemble cast -- is superbly sinister. Fincher handles the most lurid aspects deftly, capturing menace and grim despair in the frosty Scandinavian landscape." (Read the full review...) 437 words, 12/20/11 Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com: OUTSTANDING (cg) "It's an odd feeling to be seeing a movie that resembles its Swedish counterpart in so many ways, yet is subtly different... I don't know if it's better or worse. It has a different air.... If I had a choice of seeing one or the other for the first time, I'd choose the [original Swedish] version." (Read the full review...) 779 words, 12/20/11 Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...extremely deft and captivating... undeniably strong stuff, in large part because Fincher knows exactly when to drop the detachment and give the viewer a strong slap upside the head. But he never abandons his meticulousness..." (Read the full review...) 910 words, 12/14/11 James Berardinelli, Reel Views: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...what a movie adaptation should be: a film whose base narrative has its roots in the source material but whose soul can be identified through the images that unfold on screen." (Read the full review...) 1,507 words, 12/20/11
A.O. Scott, New York Times: VERY GOOD "There are waves of brilliantly orchestrated anxiety and confusion but also long stretches of drab, hackneyed exposition... [The film] manages to hold onto the vivid and passionate essence of the book while remaining true enough to its busy plot to prevent literal-minded readers from rioting." (Read the full review...) 1,080 words, 12/20/11 Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "...this cold-case mystery based on the late Stieg Larsson's international bestseller is a common pop-cult commodity.... But Mara keeps us entranced even when we want to look away." (Read the full review...) 274 words, 12/20/11 Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: MODERATE "...the film's cold, almost robotic conception of Salander as a twitchy, anorexic waif feels more like a stunt than a complete character, and so the best part of the reason we care enough to endure all that mayhem has gone away.... [It's] too frigid around the heart to be really effective." (Read the full review...) 824 words, 12/20/11 Kyle Smith, New York Post: WEAK (cg) "...rubbish.... an unaffecting, badly written, psychologically shallow and deeply unlikely pulp story... give Fincher credit for keeping things ripping along so quickly, but let's not make a virtue out of necessity." (Read the full review...) 724 words, 12/20/11 Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: VERY GOOD (cg) "...the most coldly compelling version yet of the tale dreamed up by the late Stieg Larsson... the imagery is as crisp and fastidious as it gets.... If you needed another version of Larsson's proven combination of pruience and payoff, here you go." (Read the full review...) 638 words, 12/16/11 Rafer Guzman, New York Newsday: MODERATE (cg) "It's stylish, if not exactly subtle, and daringly brutal for a Hollywood movie. It's also so uneven and overlong that it may leave non-fans wondering what all the fuss has been about.... [but] Mara is razor-sharp..." (Read the full review...) 360 words, 12/21/11 David Edelstein, New York Magazine: VERY GOOD "...adds nothing to the previous adaptation, but it's certainly the more evocative piece of filmmaking.... stuns or slumbers on the power of its Salander, and Rooney Mara is functional.... But the movie delivers. It brings the hate." (Read the full review...) 572 words, 12/19/11 Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: OUTSTANDING (cg) "It's an odd feeling to be seeing a movie that resembles its Swedish counterpart in so many ways, yet is subtly different... I don't know if it's better or worse. It has a different air.... If I had a choice of seeing one or the other for the first time, I'd choose the [original Swedish] version." (Read the full review...) 779 words, 12/20/11 J. Hoberman, Village Voice/LA Weekly: MODERATE "...grossly overstays its welcome.... 'Dragon Tattoo' persists in pursuing three separate endings and, by the time they wrap, the movie is less a walk on the wild side than an evening stroll through a well-lit topiary garden." (Read the full review...) 640 words, 12/21/11 Peter Howell, Toronto Star: VERY GOOD (cg) "...it all comes down to the 'girl' of the title, played here with a ferocious combination of rawness and vulnerability by 26-year-old Rooney Mara.... The story still plods, perhaps even more than [the original]." (Read the full review...) 1,056 words, 12/20/11 Liam Lacey, Toronto Globe & Mail: VERY GOOD (cg) "Fincher doesn't bring his auteur A-game here, though his crafty B-game is better than most.... the break-out performance of Rooney Mara as the semi-feral computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, gives the film a residue of authentic anguish." (Read the full review...) 818 words, 12/21/11 Josep Parera, La Opinion: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Una verdadera lección de buen cine que solo David Fincher es capaz de elevar con su estilo, inteligencia y dedicación." (Read the full review...) 752 words, 12/20/11 Susan G. Cole, Toronto Now: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "If you've seen the Swedish adaptation, this one's superfluous. But if you're like the majority of North Americans and have a hate-on for subtitles - Hollywood firmly believes that means most of you - go for it." (Read the full review...) 441 words, 12/15/11
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "Handsomely filmed and impeccably acted... at once satisfying and underwhelming, a pristine, cooly atmospheric procedural thriller that comes to the party a tad overdressed in inexplicably breathless hype." (Read the full review...) 842 words, 12/20/11 Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...beautifully taut and terrifying... long, but doesn't feel so. In fact, toward the end, it feels unnecessarily hurried, as mysteries are resolved, and as Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist start to look like an item..." (Read the full review...) 729 words, 12/20/11 Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: OUTSTANDING (cg) "As usual in a Fincher production, every frame is composed with care befitting a Fabergé egg.... The last scene, nearly wordless, is one of the great heartbreakers of modern film.... Fincher has made his first love story. It's a killer." (Read the full review...) 591 words, 12/20/11 Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: EXCELLENT (cg) "...a bracing pop-culture experience. The story is a little too over the top, a little too uneven and has at least a couple too many endings to be called great... Mara's performance has a ferocity that will linger in your mind long after..." (Read the full review...) 656 words, 12/20/11 Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: VERY GOOD (cg) "I don't think I've seen an actor do more with deadpan expressions than Mara does in this movie.... [she] pushes a little light through the character's dour darkness." (Read the full review...) 1,164 words, 12/21/11 Stephen Whitty, New Jersey Star-Ledger: VERY GOOD (cg) "...it is, like all Fincher films, meticulously made; it's also mostly faithful to the source material (although be prepared for a twist in the end)." (Read the full review...) 624 words, 12/20/11 Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Sometimes a movie is no more important than it should be, and the satisfaction it gives is entirely a consequence of its being exceptionally well made - in casting and conception, in story and plotting, and in the moment-by-moment execution." (Read the full review...) 727 words, 12/20/11 Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...very much its own movie and often thrilling... a sharp-edged, ultraviolent (though perhaps just a shade less so than the Swedish film) mystery wrapped in a character study... Bring on the next two movies in the trilogy; Mara's ready." (Read the full review...) 543 words, 12/20/11 Shawn Levy, Portland Oregonian: VERY GOOD (cg) "...tight, sharp and unflinching... There's powerful craft here, and [Stieg] Larsson's story has more than proven its ability to grip. But missing almost entirely is a sense of urgency and discovery." (Read the full review...) 602 words, 12/20/11 Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Craig sheds his James Bond persona with aplomb, and Mara is exhilarating in the role that brought stardom to actress Noomi Rapace." (Read the full review...) 296 words, 12/23/11 Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times: VERY GOOD (cg) "...there's an impressive aura of creepiness in the frigid locales and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' musical score... [The film falls] somewhere between the thriller mode making 'Se7en' a modern horror classic and the procedural pace that turned 'Zodiac' into an atmospheric disappointment." (Read the full review...) 523 words, 12/20/11 Tom Long, Detroit News: GOOD (cg) "...if you're a fan, you already know the drill. If you're not, and you like disturbing, violent films about damaged and brave people, this should serve you well-enough. Not a knockout, but not bad." (Read the full review...) 615 words, 12/20/11 Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: OUTSTANDING (cg) "Chemistry is one of the few things left filmmakers can't fake with CGI, and the dynamic between Craig and Mara is so sensational, it instantly propels the movie beyond glossy, high-toned pulp into something far more affecting." (Read the full review...) 779 words, 12/21/11
J. Hoberman, Village Voice/LA Weekly: MODERATE "...grossly overstays its welcome.... 'Dragon Tattoo' persists in pursuing three separate endings and, by the time they wrap, the movie is less a walk on the wild side than an evening stroll through a well-lit topiary garden." (Read the full review...) 640 words, 12/21/11 Katey Rich, Cinema Blend: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...a vast improvement on the source material, a brooding and gripping mystery that's captivating even if you know exactly how the story turns out." (Read the full review...) 816 words, 12/13/11 Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "Fincher doesn't add much to Niels Arden Oplev's Swedish version: more Googling and plot-compressing montages and an altered but still convoluted ending." (Read the full review...) 139 words, 12/22/11 Scott Tobias, AV Club: EXCELLENT (cg) "Mara's Salander is the film's lifeblood, a shrewd yet vulnerable outsider whose resilience and pluck help Fincher elevate 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' above the standard procedural. But just barely." (Read the full review...) 396 words, 12/20/11 Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline: EXCELLENT (cg) "...isn't trying to be a great work of movie art; instead it succeeds as a sharp piece of entertainment craftsmanship. The ripples of pleasure and dread it generates are nearly indistinguishable." (Read the full review...) 1,165 words, 12/20/11 Ed Gonzalez, Slant: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "The film's elegant moroseness, like the propulsive, sometimes discordant, volume of [Trent] Rezor and [Atticus] Ross's experimental score, seems intended to distract us from the fact that these two characters are banal stock types." (Read the full review...) 978 words, 12/13/11 Susan G. Cole, Toronto Now: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "If you've seen the Swedish adaptation, this one's superfluous. But if you're like the majority of North Americans and have a hate-on for subtitles - Hollywood firmly believes that means most of you - go for it." (Read the full review...) 441 words, 12/15/11 Curt Holman, Atlanta Creative Loafing: EXCELLENT (cg) "...a sleek, supercharged version of a pulpy best-seller, but doesn't transcend its genre the way films like 'Psycho' or 'The Silence of the Lambs' did. In all its versions going back to the source novel, 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' flirts with a double standard." (Read the full review...) 726 words, 12/20/11 MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher: GOOD (NOT GREAT) (cg) "If you've seen the Swedish film, it's hard to imagine that you will take anything at all differently away from this one. If you enjoyed Oplev's [original] -- as I did, very much -- you may well be bored by Fincher's, and worse, mystified..." (Read the full review...) 937 words, 12/19/11
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: GOOD "...has much to recommend it -- high-end craftsmanship, a singular heroine, a labyrinthine mystery, an intriguing milieu -- yet lacks a vital spark." (Read the full review...) 494 words, 12/23/11 A.O. Scott, New York Times: VERY GOOD "There are waves of brilliantly orchestrated anxiety and confusion but also long stretches of drab, hackneyed exposition... [The film] manages to hold onto the vivid and passionate essence of the book while remaining true enough to its busy plot to prevent literal-minded readers from rioting." (Read the full review...) 1,080 words, 12/20/11 David Denby, New Yorker: OUTSTANDING "You can't take your eyes off Rooney Mara as the notorious Lisbeth Salander.... a bleak but mesmerizing piece of filmmaking; it offers a glancing, chilled view of a world in which brief moments of loyalty flicker between repeated acts of betrayal." (Read the full review...) 603 words, 12/05/11 Mark Jenkins, NPR: GOOD "Mara and Craig embody their characters with assurance and precision, but they -- like they movie they're in -- are a bit too cold, a little too clean. For a sleazefest like this to work, everyone needs to get into the muck." (Read the full review...) 589 words, 12/20/11 Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: MODERATE "...the film's cold, almost robotic conception of Salander as a twitchy, anorexic waif feels more like a stunt than a complete character, and so the best part of the reason we care enough to endure all that mayhem has gone away.... [It's] too frigid around the heart to be really effective." (Read the full review...) 824 words, 12/20/11 Dana Stevens, Slate: MODERATE "...even Fincher's elegantly gruesome style can't turn this Swedish noir into the meditation on evil and corruption that it fancies itself to be.... Fincher is a master of mood and atmosphere, but this chilly, efficient movie never transcends the shallowness of its source material." (Read the full review...) 991 words, 12/20/11 Andrew O'Hehir, Salon: VERY GOOD "...an ingenious and engrossing work of pop cinema.... remains generally true to Larsson's novel while perhaps rearranging its emphasis a bit.... an immersive and powerful thriller... It's mostly really good and then it wears out its welcome." (Read the full review...) 1,403 words, 12/20/11
Justin Chang, Daily Variety: VERY GOOD "...plays like a first-class train ride through progressively bleaker circles of hell.... fully retains [author Stieg] Larsson's thinly veiled indictment of corporate skulduggery, anti-Semitism, child abuse and, above all, unspeakably sadistic crimes against women..." (Read the full review...) 1,353 words, 12/13/11 Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: GOOD "...fastidious, technically stellar.... it's [Rooney] Mara's movie for the taking, and she snatches it up in dramatic fashion.... [But] as the only intrigue and unanswered questions here involve Lisbeth herself, 'Dragon Tattoo' is too neatly wrapped up, too fastidious to get under your skin and stay there." (Read the full review...) 1,356 words, 12/13/11 Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: MODERATE "...the film's cold, almost robotic conception of Salander as a twitchy, anorexic waif feels more like a stunt than a complete character, and so the best part of the reason we care enough to endure all that mayhem has gone away.... [It's] too frigid around the heart to be really effective." (Read the full review...) 824 words, 12/20/11 Emanuel Levy, Cinema 24/7: OUTSTANDING (cg) "...finds David Fincher at the top of his form, reaffirming his status as the most inventive and brilliant American director working in Hollywood today." (Read the full review...) 1,078 words, 12/15/11 A.O. Scott, New York Times: VERY GOOD "There are waves of brilliantly orchestrated anxiety and confusion but also long stretches of drab, hackneyed exposition... [The film] manages to hold onto the vivid and passionate essence of the book while remaining true enough to its busy plot to prevent literal-minded readers from rioting." (Read the full review...) 1,080 words, 12/20/11 Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: GOOD "...has much to recommend it -- high-end craftsmanship, a singular heroine, a labyrinthine mystery, an intriguing milieu -- yet lacks a vital spark." (Read the full review...) 494 words, 12/23/11
Thank you for following MovieReviewIntelligence.com |
Opening Soon (Early Figures)
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
