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Honestly, I probably wouldn't have seen any of the "Girl.." movies if it weren't for the fact that my sister read them and wanted to see the movies. She saw the first without me but wanted to go see the second, so I gave it a shot. After all, it was available on the Roku, and this is the summer of Roku.

On a Roku-related side note, have I mentioned that I'm on season three of Dr. Who now? Actual DVD rental is starting to feel primitive. Ric and I watched the first two seasons of Dexter on Roku. For season three, we have to watch a few episodes and then return the disc and wait for it in the mail. It's only a couple of days, but it's amazing what instant streaming can do to a person's patience levels.

Okay! That side note is kind of an indicator of how easily I could get distracted from talking about this movie. Honestly, I'm not sure why these stories seem to be so popular. While there is an interesting investigative thriller aspect to TGWTDT, I feel like the rest of the movie gets bogged down with unnecessary overemphasis of gritty subject matter. Now, I'm not a wimp when it comes to the movies. I can watch just about anything. I could even watch this movie, but being able to sit through it doesn't mean I can't recognize when certain aspects of it could have been edited, left out, or more subtle.

The film's heroine is named Lisbeth. She has a tattoo of a dragon on her back, which really isn't a part of the story. She's a parolee, and when her parole supervisor has some health problems, she gets a new supervisor. This one is pretty cruel and perverse. At their first meeting, he takes control of her finances and basically indicates that he's willing to trade favors with her once in a while so that she can get the things she needs. Lisbeth does some security work for a company, and uses a hidden camera the next time she meets with him; little does she know that he wants more than just small favors.

Meanwhile, a man named Michael Blomkvist is an investigative reporter who is asked to investigate what happened to a girl who went missing 40 years ago. Because he had recently gone under trial for suspicion of creating false resources in an important piece he published, Blomkvist's new employer had Blomkvist investigated by Lisbeth before approaching him for help. Lisbeth hacked into Blomkvist's computer for her investigation, and even though her job is done, she continues hacking in and keeps track of the progress he's making on his case. Soon, she decides to help him.

Blomkvist's case ends up being full of family secrets that all tie in to Lisbeth's own recent experiences. To say that there are dark themes is an understatement. What I really didn't like was the way the filmmakers approached the rape subject material. There are many ways to imply a person has been raped, and many ways to film such scenes. Perhaps the goal was to show the audience the horror so that they would feel sympathy for the heroine. Audiences are capable of feeling sympathy without needing to see every detail. In this case, I feel like the scenes were just gratuitous. It was all a bit tasteless, and for no real reason. On top of that, the rape themes seem to be everywhere, and every woman in the movie seems to be a victim. It's just dark, dirty, and tiresome.

The investigation is what kept me attentive, and it's what kept me conscious of the fact that there was a lot of potential for the story that didn't come to fruition for me. The interaction between Blomkvist and Lisbeth is great, even when they don't know all that much about each other. I really liked the part of the movie when they use old photographs of a parade to figure out the identity of who was going after the missing girl. I also quite liked Michael Nyqvist as an actor.

While I didn't hate the movie, I just felt like it wallowed around in the dirt a lot for no real reason. I get that it's all about men who hate women, but part of the problem comes from how Lisbeth can appear to come down to the same level as the men who treated her poorly. We don't hear much about what's going on inside of her, because she doesn't talk much, even to Blomkvist. The whole thing feels detached and rests on fuzzy moral ground. I know that Blomkvist is supposed to be the audience's moral compass, but when Lisbeth connects with him, it makes it hard not to expect the same of her. Perhaps the book was able to tie in the themes and feel less muddled, but I was disappointed with this one.