The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Yesterday my wife and I went to see an awesome Swedish film, that will no doubt soon be remade into a crappy American version.

When that happens they'll cast the male lead 10 years younger, and give him all the good lines. The female lead will be 3 cup sizes larger, have at least 5 fewer piercings, and be reduced to nothing more than the plucky sidekick. There will be less nudity overall, but more sexual tension. The attention paid to technical details and getting the computer stuff right will instead be hand-waved into the "magic enhancement filters" of CSI. The American version will probably start with some gory prologue that totally spoils the impact of later developments, and sure-as-hell won't open with a grown man crying over pressed flowers. The Nazis will be cartoony mooks instead of creepy millionaires, as no one will expect US audiences to understand references to the Winter War and all the complicated political turmoil that the Scandinavian countries went through during WW2. The torture sequences, however, will be retained, and they'll probably add a completely unnecessary prison-rape sequence since American jails are much harder than the ones in Sweden. The amount of violence will go up, but the impact of it will go down, resulting in a less shocking film overall.

Go see it now, while it's still a refreshingly unique film with a decidely European perspective and a powerful female lead unlike anyone you've seen on our screen. 'Cause when that US version comes out, it's probably going to be boiled down and watered down to CSI vs Nazis, and everything good will be lost in translation.