Monday, May 30, 2011

Trailer for Fincher's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake

9:41 AM / Cinema / Comments16 Comments

This will probably get pulled before too long, so enjoy it while you can:

Any thoughts? I must say that my curiosity is piqued. Judging by the various shots shown, Fincher and Zaillain are sticking pretty closely to the book, which by virtue also means that the film is pretty close to the Swedish adaptation - virtually every shot in this trailer has an easily identifiable analogous moment in the original film. I'm not sold on Daniel Craig as Blomkvist - he seems too dapper and movie star-like for someone who is supposed to be a middle-aged and slightly out-of-shape journalist - and Rooney Mara's take on Salander, or rather the make-up and costume designers' take on her, is odd to say the least (I'm always reminded of Voldemort whenever I see her). My fear is that I won't be able to watch the film without constantly thinking of Noomi Rapace's stunning rendition of the character in the Swedish films. Mara may well be excellent, but she's stepping into the shoes of an actress who delivered an iconic, unforgettable interpretation of the character, and will be an incredibly hard act to follow.

But what am I saying? It's David Fincher, for crying out loud. He's had his misfires (ALIEN 3, BENJAMIN BUTTON) but he's always an interesting director, and when he's on the ball, he's REALLY on the ball. As such, there's no way he's going to do a workmanlike or slavish copy of the previous film, no matter how similar they might look from this trailer. I'll be deeply disappointed if this turns out to be nothing more than the LET ME IN to the original's LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (now there's a remake with no reason to exist beyond the fact that certain people are too bone-headed to read subtitles), but it's not exactly likely, is it?

(Thanks to Toecutter, Stefan and Erik for all pointing this out to me.)

 
16 Comments

1. FoxyMulder said:

David Fincher films just leave me cold, i always go in with an open mind but his films just do not emotionally impact on me, sure they are well made and the acting is usually top knotch but they just do not engage me as much as i hope for.

I find Fincher to be one of the most overrated directors going, he certainly has his fans but i am not one of them and that's despite giving all of his movies a chance to impress me.

I remember when i first watched Se7en, it left me cold, repeat viewings have fared better but still it's not as effective a movie as i had hoped for.

Panic Room got so many rave reviews when it came out, i personally felt they blew it because of the "happy ending" - That film also felt very cliched and i just don't feel that is a good movie, it has the acting chops and the technical qualities cannot be faulted but it left me cold.

I went into Zodiac knowing about the case and expecting to be thoroughly entertained, frankly i think Fincher turned a gripping story into a pretty mediocre film, i was disappointed.

Fight Club, highly raved about all over the internet, just another film which didn't engage me and felt cold to me and that's despite some very good acting from Edward Norton.

His best film is in my opinion The Game, i did actually quite like that one but it also suffered a little from coldness and felt a bit contrived at times, i always feel like i am an outsider looking in on the events in a Fincher film but in my opinion the best directors are able to transport you inside the film and they engage you in a way that Fincher never does.

I tried watching The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button last night on its Channel 4 premiere ( In HD ) - I just lost total interest and got so bored, after 90 minutes i switched off, when they repeat it i may watch the other final 90 minutes next time it is repeated but it bored the hell outta me and that's despite the quality acting and production values.

I know i am in a minority on this but David Fincher doesn't do it for me.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 10:47 AM)

2. Trond said:

Lame trailer, IMHO.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 2:17 PM)

3. Marcus said:

Is Let Me In really the worst case scenario when it comes to remakes? I can think of far worse examples (Point of No Return, The Vanishing) and I honestly didn't think it was a bad film. The incorporation of the 1980s setting worked, and I quite liked the way the girl's first companion was captured by the authorities as opposed to how it happened in the Swedish one.

It actually got better reviews here in America than the original did, a lot of them claiming it was an improvement.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 6:23 PM)

4. BobaFett said:

The trailer definitely got me interested. I haven't watched the original Millennium trilogy yet and while I usually loathe American remakes of European or Asian films I might just watch this one first, because David Fincher gets his films right more often than not. I actually consider "The Game", which was mentioned above, as one of his weaker efforts though, its plot was just a bit too convoluted and over the top for my liking.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 7:13 PM)

5. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Marcus:

No, I certainly wouldn't say LET ME IN is the worst case scenario. It's just that I watched it the other night, so it's still reasonably fresh in my mind (and of course there's the fact that both this and Fincher's DRAGON TATTOO are American adaptations of Swedish books made when the Swedish adaptations were barely out of the theaters). Taken on its own terms it's certainly not a bad film, but in my opinion it did nothing to warrant revisiting the material. Basically, I felt it was largely redundant.


BobaFett:

You should at least see the first of the Swedish films IMO. An excellent thriller with an outstanding central performance. With all the buzz surrounding this trailer, it's a real shame to see the original adaptation already being dismissed on certain forums, YouTube etc. as cheap (well yes, in comparison with the $100 million budget of the Fincher version, but the $13 million for which the original was made isn't exactly pocket change) and made for TV (it wasn't, although an extended version did play on Swedish TV and the two sequels began life as TV movies).

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 7:25 PM)

6. BobaFett said:

Oh, I definitely want to watch the Swedish films, too. I am just thinking about seeing the Fincher film first in this special case. Could be interesting as most people - and with people I mean people on film sites on the net, not the general public - will probably already know the Swedish one and as a result see them in the opposite order.

"Let Me In" is a film I haven't seen yet, but which really bugs me, just because I like "Let the Right One In" so much. I have read some positive reviews about "Let Me In" and it probably has a good cast, but I just don't feel that the Swedish film can be 'improved' in any reasonable way or that there is some completely new interpretation of the novel that could be made and I also don't like the changes that have been made in the American version of which I have read.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 8:42 PM)

7. Greg M said:

The only Fincher film that I haven't enjoyed (and I've seen most I believe) is Fight Club, which I flat-out cannot stand. Seven only suffers because of the perpetually annoying Kevin Spacey's scenery-chewing performance.

I haven't seen any of the Swedish 'Millenium' films because I haven't had access to the extended versions and felt like it was pointless to watch inferior edits. This adaptation has piqued my interest for sure.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 8:47 PM)

8. Author Profile Page Michael said:

BobaFett:

Your thoughts regarding LET ME IN more or less tie in with how I feel about the Fincher version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. As with LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, I fail to see how the Swedish version of DRAGON TATTO could be improved in any substantial way... especially not when it seems (from the trailer) that they're sticking very closely to the original plot and using many of the same shooting locations.

(Posted on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 9:47 PM)

9. Daniel Joseph Sardella said:

Michael -

I have a friend who said something similar to BobaFett - "I haven't seen them, and really have no desire to, I know they're supposedly good, but I am excited for this one purely 100% because of my raging Fincher Boner."

To which I said - "I'm going to STRONGLY recommend that you see at least the original Swedish version first, my man. Not doing that is akin to watching Let Me In without having seen Let The Right One In. Just my opinion."

(Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 3:06 PM)

10. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Daniel:

So true. To be honest I think a lot of people who would like the Swedish version are going to skip it and go with the remake just because it's Fincher, resulting in the "original" not getting the attention it deserves.

By the way, as predicted, the trailer has now been pulled - or at least the version I linked to. Come on, Sony, release an HD version so we can really get a sense of how the cinematography looks.

(Posted on Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 12:46 AM)

11. Daniel Joseph Sardella said:

Yeah, it would be nice to see it in the theater or on my home setup, in all it's glory.

(Posted on Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 6:43 PM)

12. Toecutter said:

Well, there is a quicktime HD file out now of the 'Green-Band' version on Apple's site.

(Posted on Thursday, June 2, 2011 at 7:10 PM)

13. Daniel Joseph Sardella said:

"This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated"...jesus, if it gets anything but "R", we'll have to revolt.

(Posted on Friday, June 3, 2011 at 1:32 AM)

14. BobaFett said:

Personally the Millennium trilogy has been on my 'to watch' list previous to the announcement of the Fincher version, but not with high priority. I still have it on my list and maybe I might change my plans again and watch the Swedish films first after all. At least, as I said, it would bug me if people decided to watch Let Me In first and LTROI could possibly not get the attention it deserves, so I understand your POV.

Michael, can you recommend a specific BD version of the Swedish films? I almost bought a BD Director's Cut set with the extended versions in a local store today, but fortunately I checked the Internet and found out that this set only contains the German dub. Meh, that's a no go for me. In addition the aspect ratio is 1.78:1 on that release, while the theatrical cuts are in 2.35:1 according to online information. Are the extended cuts generally only available in 1.78:1? I suppose you will gain image information at the top and bottom instead of losing information at the sides, but still, it would be interesting to know for which ratio the films were originally composed.

(Posted on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 2:25 PM)

15. Author Profile Page Michael said:

Bobafett:

Only the first movie is 2.39:1 - the other two, which were made for TV, were showing theatrically at 1.85:1 (and 1.78:1 on the DVD and BD releases). As far as I can tell the first film was intended for 2.39:1 - it was always intended for a theatrical release from the start, whereas the two sequels only got a theatrical upgrade after the enormous international success of the trilogy. To be honest, I suspect that the additions to the TV version of the first movie don't really make a massive amount of difference beyond fleshing various subplots out - the additions in the sequels, particularly THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, have a far bigger impact.

As for which version to buy, if you need German subs then I suspect that's the only real choice you have. If English subs are fine, then I'd go for the UK release, which only has lossy audio but whose image quality seems to more or less match that of the excellent Scandinavian version (either the Danish, Swedish, Finnish or Norwegian release - it's all the same disc).

(Posted on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 7:18 PM)

16. BobaFett said:

Thanks for clearing that up. The box set I was referring to seems to be based on some kind of TV master and it indeed has the first film in 1.78:1. There is also a set with the theatrical versions which has a Swedish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track and German subs for the three films, but the image is interlaced on that one (1080i). English subs are fine with me though, so I think it will be best to go for the UK BD of the first film. Regarding the other two films I will wait for a set with the extended versions though. I think there might be good chance of such a set being released with Swedish audio + subs in a language I speak when the Fincher film hits the cinemas.

(Posted on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 10:31 PM)

 
To combat spam, commenting is automatically disabled on entries older than 30 days.

Did a comment you tried to post accidentally get eaten by the spam filter? It happens from time to time. I get upwards of 200 spam comments every day and unfortunately don't have the time to weed through all of them in case something genuine ended up there by mistake. If one of your posts gets incorrectly flagged as spam, email me at m.r.mackenzie[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll do my best to retrieve it.

 
Archives
Categories
Recent posts