TheRetroCritic

The original The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a film I expected a lot from. Overhyped upon its release, it was really being pushed as THE next must-see thriller series. Bourne was done, Bond and Ethan Hunt were on their gap years: this was the sexy European fix we needed. What we got was a cross between a TV movie-style investigation, a classic whodunit and a sexy, modern, kickass thriller. It hardly blew me away but it worked and although I was no fan I acknowledged it was well made and was a good example of the genre. Now David Fincher is in as director for the remake and the likes of Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgard make up the cool US cast. The result? It's the same. Well, more or less the same. You've got a swanky Placebo-style music video to get you started as a kind of dark, modern, gooey Bond opening title sequence complete with fire, Led Zepellin AND hornets. Not sure how useful that really was but I enjoyed it: it was

  You know how some sequels really aren't sequels at all but in fact entirely different creations with a familiar title tacked on? Like Halloween III or Exorcist II ? Well, this is one of those movies. Oh sure Brett Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman appears briefly as part of Mila Kunis' backstory but really, this "All American Girl" sequel to American Psycho is another monster altogether. Actually, this feels much more like another Cruel Intentions sequel or a really, really twisted version of Alexander Payne's Election . I guess there's a serial killer theme to the proceedings but were the killings themselves really the whole point of the American Psycho story? Whatever depth the original had to it is reduced to a very predictable and straight-forward teen movie/thriller/black comedy. So if you can ignore the film's unfortunate attachment to American Psycho, this isn't a bad film. It's not GOOD but as a dark teen movie, it's ok: styli