Midweek Box Office: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Adventures of Tintin

Here is an interesting article from http://www.debbieschlussel.com/  reviewing some of the movies that came out over the past weekend. This follows this post some of the movies from last week and  THIS POST about some movies that have been released over the past few years that you might have missed!  This all  follows this post about guidelines to chosing good movies to watch yourself!


Midweek Box Office: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Adventures of Tintin

By Debbie Schlussel



While there are at least two FOUR REAGAN movies coming out later in this pre-Christmas week (stay tuned for my upcoming reviews), I’m not exactly thrilled with the two new movies out today, though one is far worse than the other:


* “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo“: I’m not really sure why they re-made this movie, other than the language issues (the original is in Swedish).  Aside from that, it’s virtually the exact same movie as the Swedish version (read my review), other than a different cast. Yes, there are a few tiny, minor scenes that weren’t in the original. But that’s it. If you saw the Swedish silver screen version of this Stieg Larsson novel, then you are wasting your time at this incarnation. And, even if you didn’t see the original, I don’t recommend this. I didn’t like the original, and as this is an exact replica, I found nothing to like in this one either. There’s the same boring, waaaaay toooo looooong story (the movie is nearly three hours). There is the same brutal rape scene and then a revenge anal rape scene. Is this movie escapism for you? It isn’t for me. Sorry. And the “mystery” isn’t all that mysterious or anything I cared about. Didn’t enthrall me for a second.


Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, a left-wing journalist who tries to take down a corporate CEO in the newspaper he and his married girlfriend founded. Instead, he finds himself, at the beginning of the movie, convicted of defaming the CEO and stuck with a giant judgment against him. Soon, he is approached by the lawyer for a different wealthy Swedish CEO (Christopher Plummer), who wants Mikael to investigate the disappearance of his young niece. Several of the man’s close relatives were Nazis, all wealthy, and they all live on the same luxe Island in their mansion compounds. Mikael takes the assignment because of the money. He needs a research assistant and soon finds himself with Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), the bisexual, much-pierced, and mega-tattooed goth researcher who did the background check on him for this assignment. Lisbeth is a ward of the state because she was convicted of a crime as a juvenile. Her probation officer repeatedly makes her perform oral sex on him, then rapes her. Oh, and he won’t give her the money she needs out of her bank account. I could tell you more, as I did in my original review of this movie. But then it would spoil the rest of the whole rancid, waste of time thing.



This movie’s gotten much hype, but there’s little to substantiate that faux excitement. It’s a dark, high-styled movie, but the plot and story leave little to be desired. The ending is silly, too.



This is what left-wing thrillers are all about: darkness, the alleged evil character of corporations and their CEOs, and the virtue and righteousness of “journalists” who write for left-wing rags trying to take them down. Stieg Larsson was a far leftist, a hater of capitalism, and a supporter of all things radical. Sadly, his thriller books–with a very clear agenda propagated in them–are all best-sellers.



On the other hand, Larsson is now worm food or in some place hot with the ghost of Bin Laden. See, there’s a silver lining in everything.



FOUR MARXES



* “The Adventures of Tintin“: This is fine for kids, and there’s nothing objectionable about it. But it’s just that it was too long and boring. If I was bored (and about a half hour into it, I was), kids might be bored, too. Even though it’s less than two hours, it seemed like three. It’s not tightly knit together, there are too many scenes and stories packed into one, and it’s kind of confusing.



In this animated movie made by Steven Spielberg a/k/a “Abu Spielberg,” Tintin is a young journalist, who buys a model ship in the town flea market. But a number of other people are after the model ship, causing a break-in at Tintin’s apartment and a number of odysseys by Tintin and Captain Haddock, an old, drunken sea captain, whose ancestor knew where the treasure was. They are searching for treasure, using clues found in the ship and several locales, including Morocco (always gotta gratuitously insert those Muslims into movies, right?), where the Sheikh has a model of the Unicorn, which contains one of the clues to finding the treasure.



There is plenty of swashbuckling, chasing, and the like. But, again, it just went on forever and could have been a half hour shorter at the least. But for kids, it’s fine. At the beginning it’s an intriguing story, but then it becomes a drag. Daniel Craig is one of the voices to the animated characters in this movie.



ONE REAGAN