Beautiful, imaginative, funny film with a creative, unpredictable story and a charming main character that actually makes you care for her despite not actually existing in any tangible way. Great job, girl voice actor! I’m talking about the US dubbed version since this movie has been redone with different voice actors a bunch of different times through the years. I would have preferred the original with subtitles cause I’m an elitist snob like that, but this was a pretty damn good dub all things considered.

The movie is very beautiful, and features classic animation I think, the paper and pencil kind that’s since mostly, and sadly, gone out of style. You can kind of tell by the jittery movement of some of the frames, but it doesn’t matter, it’s still great looking, and the story is deep and rich, with nice little touches here and there that really add to the film’s overall sense of wonder and magic. I loved the little world they created here, and wish they had gone into it more as a lot of the deeper stuff is only merely hinted at most of the time, or mentioned in passing, like the thing with the  rats.

I guess such things are part of the story’s unpredictability, but I was really expecting the rat element to come back somehow in the end, especially with the whole “sword” thing being introduced early on. But nope. Oh well. It still works.

I also liked how none of the characters are quite what they seem: you think the main girl is going to be this **SPOILERS** big predictable spunky Disney female type character who loves getting into adventures and doing “boy stuff,” and she is at first, but after she’s discovered by the big guy she actually learns from her mistake and becomes extremely cautious and reserved. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such character growth in a kids’ film before.

Same with the “friendship” she has with said big guy throughout the film. From the trailers you think it’s going to be this close, sappy, borderline romantic relationship, but no, it’s not like that at all. In the end they make it seem like it was, and maybe to them it seemed that way since they were both essentially just children, but to me, it didn’t feel like that at all. Their relationship is quick, distant, and cold, almost to the point where I had a hard time buying it at all. Their initial meeting is awkward and forced, like the filmmakers were rushing to bring these two together and establish them as friends as quickly as possible for the sake of the plot, except they forgot to include the part where they actually become friends in any kind of believable manner.

And they’re not even friends really; he’s dying and wants someone to talk to, and she needs his help at the end finding her mother. Aside from that, though, their relationship mostly consists of him trying to get her to talk to him and her telling him to leave her alone. Just like one of my typical relationships, in other words. Hey-O!**END SPOILERS**

Overall, I enjoyed the heck out of this movie, flaws and all. Sure, the world could have been explored more, and sure, aspects of the relationship between our two main characters weren’t quite as defined as what we’re used to from a film of this kind, i.e. a cartoon, but it’s still extremely engaging and imaginative and suspenseful and downright hilarious at times. And what excellent voice acting all around. A very, very enjoyable movie. And the ending was even a little sad. Totally wasn’t expecting that.

The best of 2012 so far, even though it came out in 2010. Worth watching!

Decent, well-directed little film that’s somewhat schmaltzy at times but also much more restrained than I was expecting given its subject and its place in film history. And, finally, a performance from Morgan Freeman that actually required him to act! I didn’t think such a thing existed. And act he does; he’s the best thing in this film.

Everyone else is okay to terrible, like Dan Aykroyd who can’t seem to decide whether he’s giving a comic performance or a stern, serious one. He seems to have trouble telling the two apart at times. And the woman who plays Miss Daisy left a lot to be desired too. She’s better at the end when she’s more weak and feeble and can’t talk as much, but some of her line deliveries are just plain stiff. That’s what she said, yeah yeah. I can’t believe she won an Academy Award for this. Whatever. Just one more reason to take their stupid award selections with a grain of salt. Jonah Hill for best actor? Really? I’m never going to get over that. You hear me, Academy? Never!

The plot is hoakey and simplistic and pretty easy to predict, but it’s entertaining, and Freeman’s devoted performance keeps it engaging. And it doesn’t push its agenda too hard, which I found especially remarkable given its many, many opportunities to do otherwise. It milks it just the right amount, delivering a message that is poignantly subtle rather than annoyingly obvious and overblown. See the crappy “Crash” for an example of what happens when someone who doesn’t know how to write or direct decides to make a movie about racism.

Overall, I enjoyed this film, questionable acting/writing and all. It’s simple and has its charms, and, I don’t normally notice these things, but some great, great aging makeup. Well done.

Poorly written, predictable, and kind of stupid, though a few scenes here and there are pretty good. Oh, and what terrible, terrible CGI throughout. I don’t normally care for such things, and probably wouldn’t have here had the story been better, or had they shown some restraint with the effects, but man. It was like watching live action and cartoons mixed together at times. Terrible.

The plot is the main problem, though. And the dialogue. It’s just bad, clichéd writing. One dimensional characters, poorly thought out scenes, things that just don’t make sense. And why did they have to film this as a “found footage” type movie, anyway? It adds very little to the story, and becomes really improbable by the end, and distracting. I just want to see the action, damn it. Stop changing perspectives on me every five seconds!

Anyway, the main character here is your typical loner loser nerd type who everyone seems to hate despite being a pretty nice guy initially. And, naturally his father is an abusive alcoholic and his mother is dying of cancer or something. Great. Start the waterworks, folks.

I understand that he’s given all these hurdles so his eventual **SPOILERS** turn to the dark side looks convincing, but it isn’t, really. It’s done in such a tired and lazy way that it just comes off boring, and the actual event that finally makes him snap is silly.**END SPOILERS** The father’s character is such an illogical, stupid stereotype. What, he didn’t think his skinny, malnutritioned looking son being able to somehow **SPOILERS** lift him up with one hand and throw him across the room during their final argument was a little odd? And why did the son call him stupid, anyway? He couldn’t even look him in the eye before, and suddenly he has a spine? Yeah, his new powers could have given him confidence, but they didn’t in any other aspect of his life, so why do they here? Totally out of character.

I thought the son had killed him after that scene, frankly, as the father is nowhere to be found afterward. But no, he conveniently returns at the end to spout his clichéd abusive dialogue one final time, to threaten him even, despite the aforementioned “throw him across the room with one hand” incident. What?!? **END SPOILERS** Yeah, he was drunk, okay. Dumb.

The movie is better visually than it is narratively, even with the crappy CGI. A small handful of scenes stand out: the crazy “tunnel” scene, the flying scenes, the last 10 minutes or so. The tunnel scene in particular is great: it’s confusing and weird, yet effective given what it represents, namely, the unknown. I was a bit annoyed that they never **SPOILERS** explain just what the hell was actually in that tunnel, **END SPOILERS** but it’s a small nitpick.

But the CGI, again, is terrible. Some scenes should have just been done practically, like the car moving scene. They couldn’t have just hooked the car up to a few cables, moved it, and removed the cables in post? Or shot the baseball, or the lego, or the rock scenes in such a way as to not make them so fake looking? Surely it can’t be that much more expensive? It would certainly have looked better.

Overall, eh. Poorly written and sporting very little depth of any kind, sure, but a few great scenes lift the movie up a bit. Just a bit, though. I had actually gone into this expecting a smart, entertaining, well written film as I had heard nothing but good things about the writing and the direction before doing so, but no, the whole thing is mediocre at best. It’s the kind of story a teenager comes up while bored in class. Tired structure, tired dialogue, tired characters. The typical crap we’ve seen thousands of times before, with a few touches of brilliance every now and then. Eh.

Surprisingly good film despite its shoddy production values, mostly thanks to a well adapted story and some great performances, especially from Geoffrey Rush who I’ve come to realize after watching this is one of the finest, most underrated actors of his generation. And Uma Thurman’s pretty good in this too, and sexy for a poor, sickly prostitute. But a fine, fine adaptation, even if you’re familiar with the story and/or read the book.

The look of the film isn’t anything remarkable, though. It’s quite cheap looking at times, frankly, which is especially grievous given the visual possibilities the historical and geographical context of the story present. I had a feeling watching this that the director has a strong theater background; the emphasis throughout is definitely much more on the acting than the visuals, and that usually implies theater training, for obvious reasons. A lot of scenes are staged or otherwise unfold in a very theatrical manner, with characters giving it their all and being pretty damn convincing despite being in locations that look like little more than dressed up sound stages, which they most likely were.

That isn’t to say it isn’t good visually. It has its moments, and it’s certainly not shot in a pedestrian manner by any means, it just feels fake at times. The characters’ clothes are a little too clean, the props a little too fake. Things are just slightly off. It’s hard to say how exactly unless you watch it, but, again, I think it has to do with the director’s theatrical background, (assuming he has one), and his emphasis on performance over realism. Eh, whatever, it works, mostly.

Overall, I enjoyed this film. It’s tense and well made, excellently acted by just about everyone, and actually well written, with changes to the book actually adding to the story rather than taking away from it like many other adaptations tend to do. ::Ahem:: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo::Ahem::

This movie constantly teetered on the edge of being terrible, though. If the direction were just a bit weaker, or the performances not as powerful, it could have been a real disaster. On the other hand, had the direction been stronger visually, it could have really been something. A masterpiece maybe, or, at least, one of the finest adaptations of a novel ever made. As it stands, though, it’s just a good movie, which is all you can ask for, really. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Recommended.

At times schmaltzy, at times genuine and heartfelt little multi-million dollar film that manages to succeed far more often than it fails, mostly thanks to some, as expected, fine direction, beautiful imagery, and a brilliant performance by the horse, or horses, used to portray the title character, assuming the creature wasn’t mostly CGI, that is. It looked like a real horse at least, but who can tell f0r sure nowadays? Either way, someone give that horse an award. The little girl playing the granddaughter of the old guy was also really good, and adorable.

The film is typical Spielbergian pretty lights and closeups and big emotional scenes with brightly lit eyes and people looking at things really intently. It looks great, in other words, but, again, it’s Spielberg; beauty is to be expected. The script is a bit on the iffy side, though, at least initially. The first act or so is really sappy, almost to the point of being rather dull. It does pick up once **SPOILERS** the horse is sold off to a soldier going to war and the film can finally stop focusing on that stupid boring sappy family. God. And what was with that whole plowing scene at the beginning? What a confusing, emotionally manipulative mess that was. **END SPOILERS**

The film’s saving grace is the fact that it chooses to focus on the horse and his many adventures trying to stay alive rather than his experiences with just one family. He meets many interesting people along the way, including a segment with an old man and his granddaughter that is probably the best, most well acted of the lot, though the later war scenes are also pretty great. In fact, the battle scenes in this movie are probably some of the most intense since “Saving Private Ryan.” Bloodless, but still extremely terrifying. And the whole **SPOILERS** horse getting tangled in barbed wire and needing to be rescued by opposing  soldiers was brilliant. **END SPOILERS** Schmaltzy and manipulative, sure, but clever, and visually stunning/metaphoric.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. It’s big and pompous as only Spielberg can be, but it’s also enjoyable, emotional, and effective for the most part. And kind of sad too for some reason. Recommended, especially if you’re a fan of big manipulative movies. I know I am.

Clunky, surprisingly pedestrian adaptation of the novel that is nonetheless a decent film, but nothing particularly unique or engaging or noteworthy. Nope, not even the performances. The intro was cool, though. Pointless and out-of-place, sure, but cool and nausea inducing in its weirdness, and full of all sorts of hidden stuff that foreshadows events revealed later in the series. Thumbs up.

The main probably with the film is that there’s just way too much exposition, especially in the first hour and a half or so. We’re told so much so quickly that it’s as though someone just picked up the book and started reciting its chapters to us rather than letting them play out in an interesting, natural manner. It’s too dense, and should have been trimmed somehow. I understand that all the backstory and Millennium newspaper stuff is necessary because this is the first part of a trilogy and yadda yadda yadda, but the original film managed to squeeze everything in without it seeming overwhelming, why can’t this? Mediocre screenwriting, I think.

Then again, the original Swedish movie had its own issues. I think the story as a whole is difficult to adapt. The first book gives the illusion of being a straightforward, page to screen adaptation, and, at its heart, the initial murder mystery does make for a good, easily adaptable yarn, but when you sit down and actually try to convert the thing to film, establishing elements of the second and third books included, it’s a mess. Maybe if they just focused on making this one and pretended the other, lesser two didn’t exist, it could have worked better.

I guess after having both read all the books and watched the original movie, it’s hard to go into this with no expectations. I knew everything that was going to happen and when, so nothing came as a surprise. Then again, that might not have mattered were this a better made adaptation. People not familiar with the story might be blown away, but a truly great adaptation should always provide its viewers with something new and interesting, regardless of their familiarity with the story. This didn’t do that for me.

The acting was also somewhat disappointing. I had heard such great things about Rooney Mara, and she’s okay here, but nothing great. She just speaks softly and mumbles a lot. And she has piercings and tattoos! Woah, edgy. Much like the story, I think the Lisbeth Salander character is an illusion, one that seems easily adaptable and infinitely rewarding initially, but, in reality, can only ever truly be represented in book form.

On the page, the character is exciting and dangerous, almost invincible in some ways, but on the screen, she’s muted, watered down, and reduced to stereotype. This is because, in the book, much of what makes her character her, that is, her genius, takes place in the dark privacy of her mind, for pages and pages at a time. Her thought process is what makes her so captivating, not her look or behavior. If anything, the way she looks and carries herself in the book only serves to further emphasize the brilliance that lies within. It’s literary irony. But a person thinking smart thoughts for several hours doesn’t exactly make for very captivating cinema. How would one even illustrate something like that exactly without being boring? It’s very difficult.

Thus a film version of her character must rely on what she looks like and how she behaves to get her personality across, which neither this film, nor the Swedish original, manage to pull off all that well, through no fault of their own. I think, given the complexity of the plot, the character is just impossible to successfully pull off on film. Salander is an illusion, like I said before. She sounds incredible on paper, to actors and filmmakers alike, but on-screen, it just doesn’t work. It can’t. But prove me wrong, Hollywood (or whoever). Prove me wrong.

Anyway, back to the mumbling: god, everyone in this film is difficult to understand except Daniel Craig. You’re in a movie: speak up, for Christ’s sake. And why have your characters speak English if you’re just going to make them all sport nearly incomprehensible Swedish accents? Either have them all speak normal, unaccented American English, or have them speak in their native Swedish tongues. Don’t mix the two. Why would Swedish people speak to one another in English with accents anyway and not their native tongues? It just doesn’t make sense.

I also didn’t buy the relationship between Craig and Mara. Why does **SPOILERS** Mara agree to help him so quickly after he comes to her apartment unannounced? In the book, she hacks into his computer during the investigation and helps him out with it before they even meet, showing she’s interested in the case, but here, he comes out of nowhere and she just agrees? Seems kind of odd, especially given how we’ve spent the last hour and a half establishing her as the cautious, reserved type. And the whole romance thing between them was forced and didn’t make any sense. And the rapist guardian guy was so miscast. He seemed way too nice and jolly to be a sadomasochistic rapist. You can see it in his eyes;  he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Just my opinion. **END SPOILERS**

Overall, eh. It certainly has its moments. It looks nice visually, but, save the intro, it didn’t really sport any of Fincher’s usual visual flair. I did enjoy how **SPOILERS** there are subtle clues as to who the killer is, including a neat trick they briefly use at the beginning and at the end of the film where the sounds of ordinary objects and doors in the killer’s home elicit screams of agony, as though the souls of his victims are still present and in a state of perpetual torment. **END SPOILERS** Very cool.

But the ending, damn it. Just like the Swedish film they changed the ending to something stupid and take away all its impact. Why? The ending of the book **SPOILERS** has the killer committing suicide in the end, **END SPOILERS** which is a perfectly good, powerful ending that reveals a ton about the character. But this? What does this reveal? Accidents happen? Yeah, great.

So, I guess if you’re a fan of the original books/movies and are overly critical like me, you may have a lot of issues with this film. But if you’re not familiar with the books and are looking for a good mystery murder type thing, you might like it. I still enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, it’s just nothing special. Could have been better.

Decent film that takes about half its running time to get going but ends up being pretty dang entertaining and surprisingly emotional once it does so. But man is that first hour a bit of a chore to get through. Not that it’s awful by any means, it’s just complicated and full of confusing historical exposition that is hard to make sense of, which, as a result, creates characters that are distant and hard to connect with, at first at least.

It’s not until the second half when the movie turns into a **SPOILERS** chase film **END SPOILERS** that things finally start coming together. Motivations are clarified and things finally start making sense, both from a character perspective and a historical one. Hurray! And you finally start to feel for these characters, especially when a few of them **SPOILERS** die, often horribly. **END SPOILERS** And, though the movie is violent, I don’t understand why it was given an R-rating. It’s not that gory, nothing you haven’t seen in a PG-13 film before, and there’s not that much other “offensive” content in it, so what gives?

Anyway, the movie looks cheap at times, but has some pretty great battle scenes that looked expensive and were probably quite difficult to shoot.  The acting is okay, nothing special, though Daniel Day-Lewis looks remarkably like Tom Cruise here at times for some reason. The plot of the film also reminded me a bit of Avatar, actually, going so far as to include a scene of a few characters referring to the carcass of a deer they just killed as their “brother” and thanking it for having died so they may have something to eat. Odd. Must be a Native American thing.

And why they needed to make the protagonist of this film a white guy who grew up among and considers himself to be an Indian is beyond me. Demographic purposes, I guess, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. He even ends up falling in love with the white daughter of a big army guy after one of the quickest, least effective courting scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. Truly a page taken from cliché war epics 101.

Overall, yeah, the movie gets better as it goes along, and becomes easier to follow, and entertaining and emotional. It just takes a while to get there. It’s okay, ultimately. Not the greatest I’ve ever seen, but certainly not the worst. The soundtrack, though, is where the movie truly shines. Give it a listen if you haven’t; it’s a masterpiece.

Tense, nail-biting action adventure type film with a stupid nonsensical plot and poorly thought out characters but enough explosions and overall craziness to balance things out in its favor. And Tom Cruise scales, then jumps off and runs down one of the largest buildings in the world here. If that isn’t the very definition of crazy, I don’t know what is.

As I mentioned before, the plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The bad guy here is some nutjob who wants to start a nuclear apocalypse to purify the human race, or something. His motives are ridiculous, and the one scene where he explains to a UN looking crowd, and, in turn, us, exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing makes absolutely no sense at all. And why would anyone in their right mind want to help this guy out anyway? He’s advocating for the almost certain annihilation of the human race; why does he have so many people helping him? How? Huh? Whatever.

The action pieces also don’t make any sense. The “famous” one of Cruise scaling the giant building is cool, and had me at the edge of my seat, sweating, thinking I was going to have a heart attack, but it’s ultimately silly and seems like the kind of thing that could have easily been done by, I don’t know, climbing a staircase and kicking down a door? Granted it wouldn’t have looked as cool, but still, let’s not resort to the craziest possible plan of action whenever we’re presented with a problem. You’re all super intelligent government spies, for crying out loud. Think things through at least.

The film seems to throw logic out the window at every step, come to think of it. The whole Dubai scene, though tense as heck and probably the best in the film, didn’t make any sense at all. Their plan is to **SPOILERS** pretend to disguise themselves as both the female assassin and the guy trying to buy the nuclear launch codes from her so they can, what? Capture and interrogate them? Prevent the main evil bad guy from getting the launch codes? Why the need for the ruse at all, then? Why not just wait until they’re both safely in their respective rooms and capture them then and there? **END SPOILERS** It’s suspenseful, granted, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, despite its many, many stupid moments. The film is very entertaining and action packed, though the plot is simple, almost absurdly so. I kept wishing it would give the audience something to chew on intellectually; a little bit of a puzzle maybe, or a clever plot twist, or something beyond all the explosions and well shot action. But no. Even the ending felt cheap and relatively sudden given the work they all had to go through to get to that moment. It’s a cop-out, in many ways. But eh.

It’s entertaining enough. The type of movie you enjoy in the moment but quickly forget about as soon as the credits start to roll.

Depressing film about miserable people living terrible lives for reasons that are never made clear but we’re nonetheless expected to accept without question. Strong performances and nice cinematography though, but the film is hollow, somewhat one-dimensional, too “by the numbers,” and occasionally a bit dull. It has its moments, but not very many. And what a crazy ending.

The performances are probably the strongest part of the film, but, thanks to the over the top nature of the writing, the characters never feel very real, or the situations for that matter. All the characters are caricatures, because this is a movie of extremes: the extremely angry protagonist, the extremely pathetic, weak-willed woman he befriends, her extremely violent and probably insane religious husband, the extremely unpleasant neighbor with the dog, etc etc.

God. It’s all just too much, and the gritty manner in which it’s shot in implies a certain degree of realism that the film just doesn’t at any point possess. It’s a visual contradiction, in a way, and it’s off-putting. Maybe if the colors had been brighter and the editing looser, it would have worked better, but no. Here, it’s just awkward.

And the characters are pretty inconsistent. Nothing is explained, really. Why is the main character so angry? Because his **SPOILERS** wife died five years ago? Huh? But then he later reveals he sort of had a love hate relationship with her. And it had been five years. Why did her death affect him in such a weird way? He kills his beloved dog in the first five minutes of the movie, for crying out loud. Why? And the woman: one minute, she’s this weak pathetic type who’s afraid of her husband, and the next, she has the ability to stand up to him and ultimately kill him? What!?

And the neighbors’ dog is treated like this big angry destructive thing, but whenever we see it on-screen it just looks scared and confused. Come on. And did he have to kill it too at the end? What’s with this movie and killing dogs? And this movie is called “Tyrannosaur” because his wife was fat? Really? STUPID! **END SPOILERS** Talk about inconsistent, and weird.

Overall, ehh. The movie isn’t terrible. Some of it works, but most of it is all over the place. Good actors doing sub-par, ridiculous material, and it’s a waste. Lots of little things that don’t add up or make sense, or are just too contrived for comfort. And the ending, again, was stupid and unrealistic. The script definitely should have gone through a few more passes before being committed to film. Eh.

Awesome crime thriller/Scorsese gangster type mash-up featuring some fine, fine performances and an interesting story that remains engaging despite its length. And violent, damn. This is Scorsese at the top of his game: entertaining, dark, brutal, and stylish without being over the top wacky or experimental or structurally choppy like he has been as of late. It’s straightforward and gorgeous, and, most importantly, a joy to watch.

I’m amazed at how a man who came on to the scene in the 70s with some of the best, most original films of that decade managed to continue making such high quality material well into the 90s, even with all the studio control a film this polished and, probably, expensive, must have had forced on it.

Granted it’s not a perfect film, very few are, but what’s there is brilliant, and gritty, and Joe Pesci, man. I had no idea what the big deal with him was until I saw this. He sure is intimidating for such a little guy, though the scenes of him making out with **SPOILERS** Sharon Stone **END SPOILERS** are awkward and uncomfortable, for me at least. It’s like a midget making out with a giant. Still, he’s great, really stealing the show whenever he’s on-screen and angry, which is about 90% of the time. And Stone is good in this too as the only one who seems to display an emotion other than anger, though that doesn’t last long. And man was she gorgeous!

Not sure what to say about this other than to recommend it, even more so if you’re already a fan of crime dramas/Scorsese. It’s just an extremely solid, beautiful, well told film full of violence and drugs and excess, and has one of the most brutal, horrific death scenes ever subjected on a major character in cinema history, probably. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it. The **SPOILERS** baseball bat/burial scene. **END SPOILERS** Yikes.  What a horrible way to die.

Overall, yeah, great film. Loved it. Scorsese at the top of  his game. Can’t recommend it enough.