This Swedish import had some very compelling drama. There were thrills, there were surprises and there was action with a strange and fascinating romantic element.

But good God, the film took its sweet time getting to it!

From the beginning: A hard-hitting journalist named Mikael Blomkvist is found guilty of libel and has six months before he heads to jail. Meanwhile, a local millionaire is still distressed over the likely murder of a close relative and hires Blomkvist to investigate, even though the case went cold forty years ago. The character synopsis and a competent (if slightly wooden) performance from Michael Nyqvist make Mikael instantly likable.

Unfortunately, Mikael spends the movie’s entire first half engaged in seemingly endless dialogue with absolutely zero tension about a murder and a victim that I didn’t know or care about. Either that or Mikael is following leads based on a funny look in a random photograph (no, I’m not making that up). In every scene, I kept asking what the point was and why I should care. It was just plain boring.

And while that’s going on, we have Lisbeth Salander (the eponymous Girl), private investigator and hacker extraordinaire. She’s a strong and mysterious character, with scars and experience far beyond her 24 years. Lisbeth is a compelling character from the word “go”, in large part due to a fearless performance from Noomi Rapace. How fearless, you ask? Her character arc in the movie’s first half deals almost entirely with sexual assault. I will repeat that: Lisbeth Salander is involved in three acts of rape within the movie’s first half.

These rape scenes never went full hardcore, but they are exceptionally difficult to watch and rightly so. I’d honestly be more offended by a rape scene that’s comfortable than one that isn’t. Having said that, I still watched the scenes feeling like I had to go bleach my eyeballs ASAP. Additionally, I probably would have cut those rape scenes entirely.

I know that a lot of the movie’s fans will disagree with me on that last point and I wouldn’t blame them for it. There’s no denying that the subplot added a lot to Lisbeth’s character. But leaving it out would have as well, in my opinion — the less we know about Lisbeth’s past traumas, the better she works as an enigma. Moreover, the rape arc could have been cut out entirely with minimal damage (if any) to the main mystery plot.

Besides that, cutting out the rape arc would have eliminated a lot of padding up front. Lisbeth doesn’t meet up with Mikael until halfway into the movie and that’s way too long. The entire movie rests on the shoulders of our two leads and their partnership is the movie’s core. Waiting so long for them to team up was a bad misstep. But team up they do. And that’s when shit gets real.

From that point on, the investigation kicks into high gear. We’ve got Nazis, intra-family plotting, corporate intrigue and bodily mutilations based on verses from Leviticus. There are amazing twists, there’s palpable tension… and there’s more rape.

Remember when I asked what the point of this movie was? It seems that when all is said and done, the point is “Murder and rape are evil.” Far be it from me to argue that, but it seems like a rather strange theme to hang a movie on. That’s sort of like making a seafaring movie for the sole purpose of illustrating how water is wet.

On a similar note, I must address this movie’s attitude toward its villains. Specifically, they are all as morally nuanced as Jason Voorhees. I’m serious when I say that the criminals in this movie have absolutely zero motivation for raping and murdering aside from psychosis, and two of them are goddamned Nazis! What’s more, the filmmakers don’t seem to have any shame at making the antagonists so transparently evil. In fact, the movie shows a disturbing amount of glee in delivering comeuppance to the bad guys. This may sound perfectly fine, until you realize that the “comeuppance” could be considered “cruel” or “unusual” or “immoral” or “flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention.” The monstrosity of our killers, plus the sadistic pleasure with which they are dispatched is all a bit much, considering the level of reality this movie sets for itself.

For miscellaneous remarks, there’s no denying that the score for this movie is amazing. The cinematography is also superb, though the editing was hit-and-miss (there are many ways to establish a character as an offscreen presence. Cutting to the character’s picture at random points is not among them). Also, is it just the movie or are Sweden’s prisons really soft? I can’t imagine *why a man awaiting jail time would be allowed to leave the country and fly halfway across the world. And what kind of jail allows its prisoners to own computers, much less ones that are online-accessible?* Also: Lisbeth does all of her hacking on a MacBook. Wouldn’t a real hacker prefer using Windows or Linux instead?

Naturally, there’s been talk of an American adaptation of the same source novel with David Fincher set to direct. First of all, I wouldn’t count on this happening anytime soon as Fincher has a lot on his plate right now. Secondly, I think that while this movie was very good, it definitely could’ve been better. If the American filmmakers can bring some emotional ambiguity to our killers, tighten up the first half, keep the second half compelling and leave the Mikael/Lisbeth relationship intact, we could be looking at a truly outstanding piece of cinema.