I just finished seeing this movie and I'm thoroughly disappointed. The movie starts off extremely slow; there is tons of exposition about the characters that is completely irrelevant to the main plot; but not enough to make the sub-plots (of blomkist and lizbeth) to be interesting. There are extremely long scenes where nothing of consequence really happens - for example almost all of the "investigation". We don't actually see any of the investigative process like in a normal detective movie; but precious minutes of the movie drag on with blomvikst interviewing random people who we the viewer do not care about, or thumbing through tons and tons of photos.
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Main plot: Investigative Journalist/publisher Mikael Blomkvist is hired by the Vanger family to investigate the disappearance of a woman 40 years ago (why investigate this now ? we're never told). Eventually they find the missing woman who is living in a foreign country. She ran away from the family to escape sexual abuse from her father and brother. They were both serial killers.
Sub plot blomkvist : he gets set up in a defamation/libel type case against a big businessman, loses a lot of money and gets disgraced. the vanger family hires him with the promise of new evidence against big businessman that will nail him, and a lot of money. In the end it turns out the evidence is useless.
Sub plot lizbeth: lizbeth is blomkvist's assistant. She's a recluse asocial goth girl. Her guardian dies and her lawyer takes control of her finances. The lawyer abuses her (2-3 rape scenes ensue), then she gets revenge.
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I thought the revenge sub-plot was the only good thing about the movie. Everything else seemed inconsequential, meandering and not fully explained. Most of the characters felt soulless and lacking interest in anything they did. It's not a tight cohesive movie, and the pacing is all over the place. It's not a feel-good movie; nor does it have any message. The movie doesn't seem to end and has multiple endings to forward the plot after the main plot is over. But those aren't really fleshed out either.
If the book is anything like the movie I don't get the appeal. I tried to read the book a few months ago and lost interest after a few chapters.
This movie seems to be getting a lot of praise and has won nominations at the oscars. Is there a different perspective to watching this movie that I don't get ?