After reading the book, I knew I had to watch the movie. Usually, I’m apprehensive about movies based on books, but for some reason,I felt a little better about this one because like the book, the movie is Swedish.  Apparently, there’s an American remake in the works. I wanted to catch the Swedish version before it left theaters.

The Swedish movie was one of the better book to movie adaptations I’ve ever seen.  From watching the trailers, I thought that the actress who portrays Lisbeth Salander looked too old, but in the movie, she was frighteningly perfect! And kinda hot in a “oh my god, she’s going to break my neck” hot.

Unfortunately, I thought the actor who played Mikael Blomkvist wasn’t cast as well. He was a good actor, but he wasn’t who I pictured. From the book, I got the impression that he was quite suave and handsome, but the actor didn’t give off that vibe in the movie.

The movie stays very true to the book in terms of plot even though there are a couple of understandable changes.  It was kind of a cliff-notes version of the book, but not in a bad way.

It’s hard to say if I would have liked the movie as a standalone movie since I read the book before watching it. Will, who watched the movie without reading the book enjoyed it too and didn’t feel like he was missing key points of the story.  It doesn’t have all the car chases and explosions of a Hollywood blockbuster, but it’s a decent mystery/thriller.  I can’t wait for the sequel.