The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2012
158 minutes
Having seen the Niels Arden Opley original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace and being fully aware Hollywood has seldom been able to remake a foreign film correctly, I was most surprised with how good the David Fincher version with Daniel Craig / Rooney Mara is.
This said, if you’ve seen one The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo DVD or Blu-ray you’ve almost seen both. The only real difference is in the last fifteen minutes or so of the movies which set up rather different conclusions. Our review of the original version.
Otherwise, the David Fincher version differs little from the original. Even some of the shots are similar. Perhaps the greatest difference between the two versions is the Fincher version has more icey colors than Opley’s while the latter is more explicit in its violence.
Another difference is in the girl with the dragon tattoo herself. Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara both give excellent performances but the Lisbeth Salander character in the original Swedish version is much more powerful and interesting.
The DVD is designed as if somebody burned a copy and wrote the title with a Sharpie. That’s kind of cool.
Special features for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo DVD and Blu-ray are a commentary track by director David Fincher. The 3 disc Blu-ray DVD combo pack includes 4 hours of behind the scenes material.