Fincher's 'Dragon Tattoo' fails to deliver thrills
The trailer for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011) is destined to be a cornerstone of future marketing classes. Its rapid juxtaposition of scenes from the film accompanied by a roaring girl power rendition of Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song” did what any movie preview should set out to do: make people want to see the movie. Speaking for myself, I wanted to buy a ticket the moment I saw the trailer. It looked like it would be a dark and brooding thriller helmed by a man well-suited to such films: David Fincher. To my great disappointment, my expectations were far from met.
Instead of a gripping mystery to solve, Mara and Craig prance around like Fred and Daphne from “Scooby Doo," happening upon the clues that will lead them to the mother of all deus ex machina. Suspects appear out of nowhere, mysteries resolve themselves, and complex pasts are done a disservice with a mere one or two line aside by an extraneous character. As a result, the film feels like a Jenga tower about to collapse on itself because its foundation has been sorely compromised. All of this is an extreme departure from Fincher's usual style, as he is a noted perfectionist. For example, he directed the nearly flawless “Zodiac” (2007) which also had numerous subplots.
Craig is hopelessly miscast as Blomkvist. In all of his films, Craig is a stoic and serious man, which suits him well for a battle-scarred James Bond. As for portraying a man who just lost everything he worked for, Craig fails to show any emotional range. Arguably the best part of the film is Mara, who portrays Salander with a sort of vicious ferocity rarely seen in female characters. This strong performance ends up ironically crossing into self-parody, however, because Salander comes off as too edgy. Sporting a tall mohawk, enough body piercings to make a pincushion wince and a string of sex partners that would put Hugh Hefner to shame, Mara's Salander is the weirdo on the street you would avoid in real life.
I could continue to speak about how the film disappoints, but I’ll end with its most egregious component: the score. The composers — Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor and his partner Atticus Ross — seemed to have rested on the laurels of their Oscar-winning and utterly original score for “The Social Network” (2010). After their rendition of “The Immigrant Song”, it seems that Reznor and Ross gave up and decided to make almost three hours of ambient elevator music. It’s as if the two forgot they were scoring a thriller and instead came up with a rejected soundtrack for an Ingmar Bergman film. It’s completely out of place, makes no sense and ultimately leaves you feeling stiffed, just like the rest of the film.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is screening tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium.