Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Movie Review: The Millenium Trilogy

I was absolutely thrilled to see that Steig Larssons' Millenium Trilogy books had been made into movies in his native Sweden. I had heard of these movies, had heard they were very well done, and was really excited to see they were on Instant Play on Netflix. I've been battling off a cold (it didn't take me down, damnit!) and I was pretty low key for most of the weekend and the beginning of this week. I watched all three of the movies and I can't say enough about how well done they were. I've already told you how much I enjoyed the books, so it was really amazing to see things come to life on the big screen, so to speak. It was great just to see what Stockholm looks like, it was amazing to hear the names and places spoken in Swedish, and it was thrilling to watch the characters played by such amazing actors. I was enthralled, even though I knew what was going to happen. I think, by far, the first movie, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was the best. It stuck so closely to the plot line of the book, it was eerie. I am usually disappointed by movie adaptations of books since they tend to leave out important details, but this adaptation was excellent. There are a few things the movies left out, for example, the relationship between Erika Berger and Mikael Blomqvist - although it was emphasized so much in the books, it wasn't really touched upon in the movies, except for some brief scenes. Noomi Rapace playing Lisbeth Salander was amazing. So amazing. I can't say enough about her - her acting was superb and I hung off of every word she said, every move she made. She is such an amazing heroine, and I was just thrilled to watch her. As a minor point, I was a bit disappointed in the portrayal of Erika Berger, a character I really admired in the books. Her role was, unfortunately, cut out of a lot of the plotline in the third movie, which streamlined the plot, but left a strong character looking fairly weak. Altogether, I loved these movies and I loved the characters coming to life. I likely would watch the American versions of these films when they come out, but I cannot imagine them being even comparable to the Swedish versions that were so well done.

1 comment:

Randi said...

I'm almost halfway through the first book and I lurve it.