'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)' review:

Having hated the Swedish film adaptations of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy" - a series of unspeakably nasty TV movies - I wasn't looking forward to spending another 2 1/2 hours in that disturbing world courtesy of David Fincher's new English language version of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. I never doubted Fincher's take would be slicker, more artful and, as a consequence, a more gripping experience than its European forbear, but I couldn't imagine taking any pleasure in the company of vengeful, anti-social computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (now played by Rooney Mara) and her boring investigative journalist friend Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig).

The 2009 film played like a boring sub-Agartha Christie detective story with bagfuls of added sadism, as we watch see our heroine subjected to every kind of injustice, and are afterwards expected to relish her "eye for an eye" take on brutal sexual violence. Yet this version at least understands that two rapes don't make a right.

Despite Fincher's reputation as a cold hearted bastard behind the movie camera, his version of the story (as scripted by Steven Zaillian) is a little more humane and, as a result, infinitely more enjoyable even if it retains all of the original's most unpalatable moments. It helps that this Lisbeth doesn't spend the entire film looking either indifferent or angry at the world, as Noomi Rapace's did. She is every bit as cold, sullen, bad-ass and capable (in a fight and as an ace investigator) when she needs to be, living in an equally gritty version of modern Sweden, but Mara brings out more of the character's vulnerability and fear, playing her as a tragic figure - a lifelong victim of violence at the hands of sadistic men.

With Mara's nuanced Salander even showing some affection and warmth, as well as contempt for manfolk, we can see her as more than just a leather clad angel of vengeance, every bit as "evil" as those she despises. She is a person who we feel for: whose triumphs we enjoy and whose relationships we can invest in. She is in fact a much more interesting character than the story she inhabits - a motorcycle riding punk with a photographic memory and a past she'd rather forget.

Whilst there are stomach turningly nasty sequences, mostly of a sexual nature, less emphasis is placed on violence in this version and, when Salander is transgressive, we relate that more to her troubled back-story and precarious mental health, instead of being encouraged to view her as an anti-hero and potential outlet for fantasies of "fuck you" nihilism. Mara enjoys good on-screen chemistry with Craig - who makes for an almost equally engaging Blomkvist - whilst the presence of Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Joely Richardson and Steven Berkoff, in the ranks of the nefarious family of aristocratic former Nazis, gives the dialogue some heft.

The book's tired murder mystery storyline - with Blomkvist invited to a remote island by an old patriarch in order to investigate the 40 year-old disappearance of a young girl - retains some crippling structural problems: Blomkvist and Salander don't meet until halfway through, whilst three separate plot threads never really connect satisfactorily. Yet this rote whodunit benefits from the overall improvement in cast, atmosphere and some typically inventive directorial choices. Sound is especially key to its success, as aided by a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (fresh from Fincher's 'The Social Network'), this is consistently tense where the other film was just boring.

'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' is out now in the UK, rated '18' by the BBFC.

Trailers: Fincher's 'Dragon Tattoo' Looks Good, But 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' Less So

I really didn't at all like the Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy": The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. Personally, I found them to be more than a little nasty and I felt they were blandly made, with a television aesthetic.

However, David Fincher - hot off the excellent 'The Social Network' - has been busy making his own adaptation, which looks markedly better. The trailer below is pretty electrifying, helped a lot of fantastic editing to the beat of a really energetic cover of Zed Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" by 'Social Network' composer Trent Reznor and Karen O - who provided songs for Spike Jonze's 'Where the Wild Things Are'.



I may still dislike the tone and attitude of the eventual movie, but this is a fantastic trailer regardless and I'm now excited to see the film.

Less exciting is the latest trailer for 'Planet of the Apes' prequel, 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' - which stars Academy Award host and nominee James Franco, alongside Brian Cox and 'Slumdog' actress Freida Pinto. The trailer makes it look really boring, with shots of men in lab coats talking about genetics, intercut with the faces of unconvincing computerised primates. I don't really know who this movie is for, unless the franchise is much more popular than I realise.

To me it seems like the wisdom of the age dictates that all "properties" have to be continually "developed", and therefore we were give Tim Burton's lacklustre take on the series and now this (with a view to several sequels, I'm sure).

I'm not completely writing it off as it could be really good, but the trailer leaves me unconvinced.

May I'm mostly put off by the core concept: that a bunch of laboratory apes could overwhelm a well-equipped human army. This seems to me to be completely stupid. Just because the apes become more intelligent, I don't see why that means they aren't still gunned down en masse as soon as the trouble starts. I guess I'll have to see the film if I want to find out how they overwhelm the world of man. We know who ultimately wins after all.

'Let Me In' review:

There is no getting away from the simple fact that the critical consensus on remakes is that they are at best pointless and at their worst artless facsimiles. It is brave then of 'Cloverfield' director Matt Reeves to have remade a recent film of seemingly unanimous critical acclaim. Few critics took Tomas Alfredson's 2008 vampire film, 'Let the Right One In' (itself an adaptation of a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist), for anything less than a classic upon its release. In the two short years since, it has already become an established sight on horror movie "best of" lists amongst critics and the public (or at least a cinephile sub-section of the public). It is brave of Reeves to attempt to remake such a film, still so fresh in the memory, in spite of the fact that "Hollywood" remakes of foreign language films are routinely dismissed before anyone has had a chance to see so much as a poster. "They'll dumb it down." "They won't keep that bit in." And so on and so forth.

It is even braver (or perhaps more foolish) then that Reeves has sought to do little more than transpose what is a fairly slow and contemplative film, lacking much genuine action or any real "scares", into English without really "sexing it up" at all - give or take some CGI work. The film's box office results, here and in North America, reflect the fact that Reeves (who also wrote the screenplay) has tried very hard to keep to the spirit of the original film and in doing so has limited its mainstream appeal. Perhaps you could argue his film is too respectful to the original - that it does nothing new and hasn't even found the story an especially big new audience - and therefore it is even more pointless an exercise than something altogether different (however crass).



For those who aren't familiar with the original film or its source novel, 'Let Me In' is a bleak and low-key horror film set in a snowy, backwater town where a meek and isolated 12 year-old boy - bullied at school and paid little attention by his warring parents - befriends his new neighbour, an unusual 12 year-old girl who happens to be a vampire. It is a sort of dark love story, though the love is Platonic and born from mutual acceptance, and need for kinship, rather than lust. The girl is accompanied to the neighbourhood by her guardian, a father figure who is forced to murder people in order to bring her the human blood that sustains her life.

The film retains the 1980s setting of the original, but does so with far less subtlety. As well as the Rubix Cube which begins the young duos friendship (with the girl working it out with impressive ease and speed), we are shown President Reagan on TV (twice), and hear David Bowie's 'Let's Dance' on the soundtrack more than once. Unlike in the previous version the local adults/victims are not down-and-out social outcasts, but just normal, everyday people.

One thing is for sure: 'Let Me In' is no turkey. It is atmospheric and tightly directed (with the mood, and many individual shots, stolen wholesale from the original), the young stars - Kodi Smit-McPhee ('The Road') and Chloe Moretz ('Kick-Ass') - are well cast, and no overwhelming liberties are taken with the story (although, somewhat predictably, the vampire's anatomical reveal is omitted). The themes of the original are left intact and the dynamics between the characters are just as interesting, though motivations and events are often over-explained. Perhaps the relationship between the vampire and her guardian is more touching and sympathetic in this American version, thanks to the casting of the excellent Richard Jenkins.



As mentioned, both the film's young stars are effective (though Smit-McPhee is a little more wet behind the ears than his Swedish counterpart), but it is Moretz who stands out and proves again that she has a strong screen presence which belies her years. The film is carried by these actors and the tenderness of the scenes between them is often quite sweet. However the more emotional scenes are undermined by Michael Giacchino's melodramatic and string-heavy score (a shame as his Academy Award winning music for Pixar's 'Up' was deeply affecting), which often also overemphasises moments of suspense. It certainly isn't a patch on Johan Söderqvist's chilling score for the 2008 film.

The film's increased budget is best put to use in the film's few "action" sequences in which the vampire attacks her prey. Some very effective CGI work has been done to make her attacks more visceral and jarring: with jerky body movements and a deadly athleticism, combined with some really bone-crunching violence (otherwise impossible from a stunt actor or practical effects). I would agree that often, particularly in horror, practical effects are more weighty and frightening, but there are some things that computers are just better for and 'Let Me In' gets the balance about right. As a result a few of those more grim scenes are improved on the original. This is not true in every case, however. The memorable penultimate scene, in the school swimming pool, is not filmed with anything like the same startling economy demonstrated in the Swedish version (in which all the violence took place in one brief underwater shot), and instead we are shown too much for too long.



All in all, 'Let Me In' is a polished and effective remake which does nothing to embarrass the original, even if it does equally little to challenge it. Some things (the violence) are taken further due to the film's increased budget, whilst some things (arguably more significant things - like the gender issue) are reduced or go unexplored. Ultimately, there is nothing here to really contradict those who will say the whole exercise is inherently pointless. But I would say that, if you haven't seen the original and can't stand to read subtitles, then you aren't shaming yourself by watching this American remake. Its flaws mostly lie in its (unavoidably) derivative nature and if you have nothing to compare it against then you might find yourself just as moved and surprised as the rest of us were two years ago.

'Let Me In' is out in the UK now and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

REMAKING THEMSELVES Remakes: They aren't all bad...

Here are an unusal lot, directors who remade their own films later in their careers. Comedy directing legend Leo McCarey remade his own 1939 film 'Love Affair' (itself nominated for 6 Academy Awards) as the 1957 movie 'An Affair to Remember' starring Cary Grant. The remake, which used the same screenplay, is now even better regarded than the original:





Alfred Hitchcock remade one of his British sound films, 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1934), during his Hollywood years n 1956, with James Stewart and Doris Day starring (though the original didn't have a bad cast either - Peter Lorre!). Hitchcock felt that his earlier film was the work of a gifted amateur and his remake the work of a professional director. You can watch the original in full here:





Frank Capra remade his acclaimed 1933 film 'Lady for a Day' (which was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars) as the 1961 film 'Pocketful of Miracles'. Ok, so this time the results were not so great, largely due to the fact Capra chose to adapt Robert Riskind's original script and, his last film, it was also the work of a director whose powers had sadly diminished. But regardless, it is still a fun film (apparently Jackie Chan's favourite ever - he remade it in Chinese in 1989 as 'Miracles'):

There is not an embed code, but you can watch a clip for the original here and the trailer for the remake here.

Capra, Hitchcock and McCarey's remakes all share something in common: an old black and white film had been turned into a colour film. In Capra's case, it was his first (and only) film in colour. When the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu turned to colour filmmaking at the end of his career, he also turned to remakes. But in his case they were not just to add colour to his older work, but also sound. In 1959 Ozu remade both his 1932 silent 'I Was Born, But...' and his 1934 film 'A Story of Floating Weeds' as 'Good Morning' and 'Floating Weeds' respectively.









Anyway, an eclectic mix. Let me know if you can think of any other cases of this happening. These are just the ones I knew of. There must be loads.

FELLINI Remakes: they aren't all bad...

Continuing this week's look at the "remake", I have decided to take a brief look at how the work of another "master" director's work has been adapted and remade over the years: that of Federico Fellini. Interestingly, the two most famous adaptations of his work took very similar routes to the screen, although the results were very different...

Both 'Nights of Cabiria' (1957) and '8 1/2' were remade in the English speaking world as Broadway musicals, before becoming films based upon those musicals. 'Nights of Cabiria' became Neil Simon's 'Sweet Charity' (directed by Bob Fosse in 1969), in which Shirley MacLaine took the lead role:





Of course Bob "Cabaret" Fosse and Neil "Odd Couple" Simon combine with the brilliant MacLaine to turn Fellini's movie into something entirely different, but almost equally good... whereas Rob Marshall (director of the 2002 screen adaptation of Fosse's own 'Chicago') turned the stage adaptation of '8 1/2' (1963), 'Nine', into a big, all-star musical film last year. The results, despite the pressence of a stellar cast (including Marion Cotillard, Daniel Day-Lewis and Penelope Cruz - although the Black Eyed Peas singer 'Fergie' gives the best performance), are truly awful:





I don't know why Fellini has twice been turned into a Broadway musical. Perhaps it has something to do with the percieved glamour and high-fashion of Italian culture. Kate Hudson sings a song about it in 'Nine', funnily enough:



Anyway, more of a mixed bag with Fellini remakes than Kurosawa in any case. The cliche is always the Kurosawa's films have a western (or Western) sensibility - something he disputed. Could that be the reason Kurosawa's films suit American adaptations quite readily?

KUROSAWA Remakes: they aren't all bad...

The news that Chris Rock is re-writing Akira Kurosawa's 'High and Low' (one of my favourite movies of all-time) for Mike Nichols to direct, has made me think about remakes. Usually, and probably rightly, remakes are dismissed as rubbish before they have even been released. There is this idea that they are terrible movies by default: that no movie should ever be remade at all. I wish to refute that logic here and now, looking specifically at remakes of Kurosawa films, which generally seem to be quite good...

Remade at the hands of John Sturges and starring Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner (among others), Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' (1954) became 'The Magnificent Seven' in 1960.





Kurosawa would again see one of his finest Samurai pictures turned into a western, when 'Yojimbo' (1961) was unofficially (but blatantly) remade by Sergio Leone a few years later as 'A Fistful of Dollars' in 1964. Some scenes are shot-for-shot reproductions of those from the earlier movie, with the long "three coffins" tracking shot through the town virtually identical in both. Clint Eastwood has also admitted that he heavily based his depiction of the "the man with no name" on Toshiro Mifune's.





It is often said that Kurosawa's 'The Hidden Fortress' (1958) was the main source of inspiration for George Lucas' first 'Star Wars' film in 1977. Lucas has said that the two comedy-relief peasants from the Japanese film were the direct inspiration for R2-D2 and C3P0, as he liked the fact the narrative seemed to be told from the point of view of the lowliest characters. There is also a Princess in peril who the band of heroes must rescue and add to that Toshiro Mifune as 'the General', who is very much a model for Han Solo (an antagonistic rouge with a good heart who wins the Princess with whom he argues - although Lucas tried to cast Mifune as Obi-Wan Kenobi). From a technical point of view, Lucas also borrowed Kurosawa's use of screen wipes and the horse chase sequence seems to have been an inspiration for the speeder bike sequence in the later 'Star Wars' sequel: 'Return of the Jedi' (1983). Lucas' love of Kurosawa movies was made even clearer in 1980, when he and Francis Ford Coppola helped the Japanese master fund his epic 'Kagemusha'.





Of course, there have been some less good ones too...

In 1996 'Last Man Standing', starring Bruce Willis, was a direct remake of 'Yojimbo' which fared rather less well than Leone's:



Many films have been inspired by Kurosawa's 1950 film 'Rashomon', with the so-called 'Rashomon effect' being when the same story is told from multiple, changing points of view, shedding new light on an event. However, one film, 1964's 'The Outrage'
(starring Paul Newman as a Mexican bandit, no less)...



Here is how all that should have looked: