The film is certainly faithful to every detail of the novel's intricate plot, which is fair enough, but does give it the feel of a plodding TV whodunit rather than a cinematic experience.

An engrossing and classically suspenseful story

Revel[s] in its seedier aspects ... while appropriating every aesthetic trope from the modern Hollywood thriller handbook.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a handsome thriller, anchored by an arresting performance in the title role by Noomi Rapace.

A chilling detective tale, a horrific sexual abuse drama and an overlong, emotional, tie-up-every-loose-end melodrama that is sure to be half an hour shorter when Hollywood remakes it without Swedish dialogue and probably without the cool Swedish edge.

Rapace's haunting, enigmatic Lisbeth is the element that leaves you eager for the next two installments. She's fantastic, and so is the movie.

A bracing survey course on the mystery genre set in a Scandinavian landscape as cold as a killer's kiss.

Appreciation of the film relies more on the performances than the problem-solving, and Rapace delivers a complicated and deliciously contrary performance that tattoos Lisbeth Salander straight onto the brain.

You don't mess with Lisbeth Salander. And you'd do well not to miss her, either.

It's the tender rapport that develops between Lisbeth and the older Blomqvist that sustains our interest in this violent, overlong film.

The mismatched leads make a compelling pair, and director Niels Arden Oplev keeps the action relatively tight.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo grapples with far more than "whodunit." And it does a handy job of answering that question, too.

This is not your mother's murder mystery, unless... she has an appallingly bleak vision of modern society that occasionally fixates on the historical misdeeds of the corporate/industrial world and the correction thereof.

There's a lot to revel in, be provoked by and obsess over.

For a full 152 minutes I sat in the theatre spellbound, and while I knew a lot of time was passing not once did I ever want to leave my seat as I was for all intents and purposes glued right to it.

The violence in this movie is so intense and upsetting and... I don't think actually serves the purposes of the storytelling or the points this movie wants to make.

Stieg Larsson's best-selling crime novel has all the makings of a cinematic thriller. As directed by Niels Arden Oplev in Swedish with English subtitles, Tattoo is mesmerizing.

Noomi Rapace throws herself into the title role, but something about the conception of her character, and about the far-reaching urgency of the sociopathic shocks behind the killing, smacks of a filmmaker pushing too hard.

Noomi Rapace more or less looks the part that the filmmakers don't let her fully play.

The author is a sharp social critic, so what his characters uncover isn't just crime, but a whole dark side to Swedish society -- not least a terrible, sadistic misogyny.