The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (movie poster)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is based on a hugely popular series of books, the Millennium trilogy, by Swedish investigative journalist Stieg Larsson.Unfortunately just days after handing over the manuscripts, Larsson died of a heart attack at the age of 50 and never lived to see the global phenomenon his books have become or the equally superb film adaptation.

The story follows disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) who has been hired by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), the head of the powerful Vanger corporation, to solve the disappearance of his niece Harriet 40-years earlier.During the investigation Blomkvist wades deeper in to the intricate web that is the Vanger family and he takes on board the skills of brilliant young hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). As the pair begin to piece together the clues surrounding the mystery, they uncover a series of gruesome murders. Fans of the book would be no doubt be wary of any film adaptation, as history has showed us book-to-movie projects rarely work. This is the exception. The Lord Of The Rings exception if you catch my drift.

Larsson's novel is no fairytale, examining freedom of speech, sexual abuse, the justice system and violence, all the while painting Sweden as a corrupt and chauvinistic society. The film maintains the complexity and choreographs the moments of suspense, action and genuine terror perfectly. As Lisbeth, Noomi Rapace emerges a true star. She pours her heart and soul in to the character who is no doubt the most refreshing movie heroine since Clarice Starling or Lt Ellen Ripley. Even those two wouldn’t have been able to drop the c-bomb as convincingly as Salander. In the same way Marion Cotillard took out the Oscar for her part in French film La Vie En Rose, Rapace should be a shoe-in for the best actress Oscar come 2011. She is fierce and vulnerable at the same time, while managing to allude to the many layers of her character.

With Swedish subtitles and from a team of relatively unknown filmmakers and actors, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has not lost any of its meatiness in the transition from paper to screen. It is not an easy film, its criticisms are unflinching and its violence graphic. Yet the pay-off is worth any of the horrors you see and its two and half hour running time goes by in a flash. Director Niel Arden Oplev has made a stylish movie and the best compliment it can be given is it lives up to the brilliance of the book.

I know it’s early days yet, and what I’m about to say may soon become redundant with Kick-Ass’s release in a few weeks, but this is by far the best film of the year…so far. If I were the star-giving type I would give it everything I had and then a few pinched from the sky above me.