The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo Review

Visceral, Relentless and often uncomfortable but never failing to be engaging. Director David Fincher’s A Girl With A Dragon Tattoo is a masterful piece of film.

I became a big fan of the book mainly because of the draw of the character of Lisbeth Salander. Here we have a female lead who can be both the victim and the tormentor, the sex appeal and the alien, there really is no other character out there to compare her to, and Rooney Mara hits the nail on the head. In Hollywood its too common to see the girl who waits for her knight in shinning armor to save her, or the girl who needs a man to feel happy and complete, frankly its sickening and I have had enough of it, that’s why I was so happy to embrace a character like Salander, who breaks all conventions.

The story is about disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, (Daniel Craig). Craig has the sense here to step down and let Rooney Mara take the spotlight. Blomkvist is recruited by reclusive Swedish tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to come out and investigate the murder of his niece. Vanger is convinced someone in his family of detestable characters murdered his niece back in the 1960s. Blomkvist recruits the help of the talented computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to find the murderer. By itself this plays out as a close door type mystery, the list of suspects are few and their motivations fewer.

What makes Dragoon Tattoo unique here is the focus on Salander with the backdrop of violence against women and what it means to be a victim and how one takes control of one’s own life. One disadvantage of the adaptation to cinema is the lack of time to pause on these situations and take them in, even with a runtime of 2 and a half hours the breakneck pacing leaves no time to reflect.

This isn’t to say Dragoon Tattoo is a perfect film; it suffers from an unbalanced 3rd act that will leave people wondering why the credits did not roll 20 minutes before.

To add a slight disclaimer, this movie contains some very uncomfortable scenes, namely a brutal rape scene. The scene is a testament to the sensibilities of Fincher, as what we don’t see in frame is felt heavier than what we do see; yet the scene still remains brutal to watch.

3 ½ / 4 Stars

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Review

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

I have to say I was pretty impressed by the first Sherlock Holmes, and what was there not to like? A dark London setting, an eccentric Robert Downey Jr. who just looked like he was having fun in every scene. The follow up film however…meh.

The second film picks up in the middle of a cat and mouse game (its mostly cat) between Holmes and Professor Moriaty (played by Mad Men’s Jared Harris). Moriaty is plotting to start a world war so he can reap the financial benefits of the destruction. Holmes is joined by his friend Dr. Watson (Jude Law) and for some reason Noomi Rapace is along for the ride (seriously, leave a comment on this post if you can tell me why she is here). I guess Rachel McAdams could only spare 5 minutes to shoot this since that’s all the screen time she has.

My big problem with Game of Shadows is the plot. There is nothing new or inventive about it, it deals with bombings, arms deals and a plot to start a world war. By itself it’s not a particularly terrible idea, but in a film titled Sherlock Holmes you would expect there to be some kind of mystery involved, but there just isn’t. It’s a story that would be better served in a James Bond film. As a result the sequel plays as some kind of dumb action movie. In the first film much was forgiven because Downey was so charming in his character, but because of the plot restrictions Holmes is little more than a clever action movie star so he has very little to do with the material he has. As a result his performance this time seems phoned in.

On the other side of the game Jared Harris plays a perfectly convincing Professor Moriaty, his threats carry consequences and he generally seems menacing. In the end he has the same restrictions, as does the rest of the cast, a plot that was not meant for them.

In the end A Game of Shadows delivers some good things, its slow motion start/stop action sequences are fun to watch, and would be rather impressive if not for the fact this does not work as an action movie.

If you were a big fan of the first one, check this out if you feel so inclined. If you had lukewarm feelings about it, this is an easy pass.


2/4 Stars

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Review

This summer we saw plenty of franchises that were clearly running out of gas (I’m looking at you Pirates of the Caribbean). It’s refreshing to see that on its fourth installment the Mission Impossible franchise manages to keep itself fresh.

Lets get the mediocre out of the way first, the plot. Its pretty standard, almost disappointingly so. Some Russians are out to start nuclear war and set the world into chaos. We are never really told their intentions for doing so, other than to be just plain evil I guess. So Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his band of recently disavowed secret agents must stop them, all while using the coolest gadgets they can get their hands on. It’s just that this story is so shallow and has been done to death, even this year with X-men First Class. It’s a shame director Brad Bird did not have something more original to work with.

What Bird lacks in story he makes up for in the telling. Ghost Protocol is visually a well-told story. After a summer of bloated action films that were filmed so incomprehensively it was near impossible to follow the action happening on screen. Bird frames his action scenes so cleanly it was easy to forget the plot was paper-thin and get wrapped up in what was happening. There is a prison fight scene early on in the film that suffers from the camera being too zoomed in on the action, on a bigger screen it becomes more of a problem as the image becomes almost too uncomfortable to watch. But in the grand scheme of the film it’s a forgivable offense. In later action scenes the camera is placed properly.

Bird makes his first jump into directing live action feature films with Ghost Protocol and shows he is just as competent with it as he is animation, Bird’s previous films being The Iron Giant and Pixar’s The Incredibles. In fact on that note I’m pretty sure the “Your mission…if you choose to accept it…” voice is the same radio voice Bird used on The Incredibles.

Tom cruise leads the cast doing what he does best. He is joined this time by Paula Patton, Simon Pegg (who serves remarkably well as the films obvious comic relief) and Jeremy Renner, who does a fine job of it. We will be seeing more of Renner in this type of role plenty in the future, in Marvel’s The Avengers and the new Bourne films. Unlike MI: 3 there is no strong leading villain in Ghost Protocol, and that’s regrettable but not to be considered a deal breaker.

In the end what we have is a strong film that compared to other action films this year, is near the head of the pack. A solid cast that shares a strong chemistry and a production that is well though out and solidly executed. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but it’s one of the strongest the franchise has to offer.

3/4 Stars

Note: I saw this film in an Imax theatre and it makes good use of the format. Especially during an intense sequence where Tom Cruise has to scale a few stories of the tallest building in the world. So if you are interested in that kind of thing (and you should be) then I recommend checking it out in Imax.