What the creators of this film have done is to take the Gruesome TV Thriller genre and give it the appearance of an art film by providing a more intricate plot, a sense of immediacy and far better production values. If you like CSI Miami, you'll absolutely love The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
That's the entertainment value. What is the value of this film as a component of popular culture? Back in the late 40s, proponents of film censorship defended it by arguing that without it, movies would eventually succumb to the law of gravity and become a force for cultural degradation. Cultural liberals have used this argument as a laugh line ever since. Watch this movie (or any of the others like it) and if you can then roll your eyes over the cultural degradation argument, you are a confirmed member of the dreaded liberal cultural elite. For the rest of us however, it should be obvious by now that the dire prediction has come to pass. The question as to how society digs its way out of the moral cesspool is 'beyond the scope of this review' but I pose it for your consideration.
What is the political value of this film? Quite high actually if you are a radical feminist. I have not watched it a second time in order to precisely document my remarks but I do believe that roughly half of the male characters in it spend a great deal of their leisure hours torturing, raping and killing women using Bible passages as a guide. Except for science fiction and horror films there is a general understanding that movie scripts should be reasonably believable. Can anyone seriously believe that four out of a total of seven or eight male characters in any given setting are sexual psychopaths? This is the worst kind of stereotyping and it is shameful.
Take a reliable TV formula, add three or four tablespoons of sex and violence, a dash of feminist anger as a substitute for ideas and a sprinkling of cinematic platitudes. Bake until half-done and you get The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. If you can watch it for free, its tolerable adult escapism but nothing more.
That's the entertainment value. What is the value of this film as a component of popular culture? Back in the late 40s, proponents of film censorship defended it by arguing that without it, movies would eventually succumb to the law of gravity and become a force for cultural degradation. Cultural liberals have used this argument as a laugh line ever since. Watch this movie (or any of the others like it) and if you can then roll your eyes over the cultural degradation argument, you are a confirmed member of the dreaded liberal cultural elite. For the rest of us however, it should be obvious by now that the dire prediction has come to pass. The question as to how society digs its way out of the moral cesspool is 'beyond the scope of this review' but I pose it for your consideration.
What is the political value of this film? Quite high actually if you are a radical feminist. I have not watched it a second time in order to precisely document my remarks but I do believe that roughly half of the male characters in it spend a great deal of their leisure hours torturing, raping and killing women using Bible passages as a guide. Except for science fiction and horror films there is a general understanding that movie scripts should be reasonably believable. Can anyone seriously believe that four out of a total of seven or eight male characters in any given setting are sexual psychopaths? This is the worst kind of stereotyping and it is shameful.
Take a reliable TV formula, add three or four tablespoons of sex and violence, a dash of feminist anger as a substitute for ideas and a sprinkling of cinematic platitudes. Bake until half-done and you get The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. If you can watch it for free, its tolerable adult escapism but nothing more.