What happened to this movie ?
That's a much more interesting question, than anything this destroyed artifact has to offer
Everything about this project looked so good: World class cast, director, cinematographer, editors, producers, writer, all based on a bestselling thriller: I couldn't wait to see it.
Executive producer Martin Scorsese even wanted to direct it himself years ago, so it couldn't possibly be bad, because that man knows his stuff, right?
I didn't read the novel and avoided any plot description because I wanted to enjoy a good thriller without knowing too much. But if anyone tells you, that he 'understood' the plot and character motivations of this mess, then you know he's lying or he's talking about the novel.
The director Tomas Alfredson - who did such a fantastic job on "Tinker, Tailer, Soldier Spy", which was hard to follow sometimes, too, but did make sense - said in an interview, that 10-15 % of the screenplay were not shot. No joke. And these were pretty important pages, it seems, because the lead characters sometimes behave in incomprehensible ways. What the motivation of the killer was, is still an enigma to me.
Because key scenes were missing, the producers probably thought: "Hey, we'll just hire the best editors and they'll solve the problem somehow!" Thelma Schoonmaker and Claire Simpson are indeed two of the best editors in the world, but if not even they could construct something like a story out of the footage, then something went deeply wrong during the shoot.
The footage itself looks great. Oscar winner Dion Beebe is at the top of his game here and every shot is artfully composed and feels just right: Cold, sinister, grey, realistic, but still beautifully stylized. We are talking here about award-worthy cinematography, no less.
The acting is good, too, especially the beautiful Rebecca Ferguson and Michael Fassbender, who is too young for this part, but gives a decent performance.
Yes, there are some ridiculous scenes, especially the idiotic showdown, where Harry Hole survives and catches the killer by pure coincidence, but good producers could have fixed this through re-shoots. They didn't even try, it seems. They just gave up, because it was a lost cause.
How could the producers, screenwriters and director destroy a project that had so much going for it ?
This is one of the worst films of the year & one of the strangest film artifacts ever released in cinemas. It could serve as an example for filmmakers how NOT to edit a film or how NOT to tell a story.
I only gave it 2/10 because of the cinematography & I felt sorry for the actors.
A crime against cinema.
That's a much more interesting question, than anything this destroyed artifact has to offer
Everything about this project looked so good: World class cast, director, cinematographer, editors, producers, writer, all based on a bestselling thriller: I couldn't wait to see it.
Executive producer Martin Scorsese even wanted to direct it himself years ago, so it couldn't possibly be bad, because that man knows his stuff, right?
I didn't read the novel and avoided any plot description because I wanted to enjoy a good thriller without knowing too much. But if anyone tells you, that he 'understood' the plot and character motivations of this mess, then you know he's lying or he's talking about the novel.
The director Tomas Alfredson - who did such a fantastic job on "Tinker, Tailer, Soldier Spy", which was hard to follow sometimes, too, but did make sense - said in an interview, that 10-15 % of the screenplay were not shot. No joke. And these were pretty important pages, it seems, because the lead characters sometimes behave in incomprehensible ways. What the motivation of the killer was, is still an enigma to me.
Because key scenes were missing, the producers probably thought: "Hey, we'll just hire the best editors and they'll solve the problem somehow!" Thelma Schoonmaker and Claire Simpson are indeed two of the best editors in the world, but if not even they could construct something like a story out of the footage, then something went deeply wrong during the shoot.
The footage itself looks great. Oscar winner Dion Beebe is at the top of his game here and every shot is artfully composed and feels just right: Cold, sinister, grey, realistic, but still beautifully stylized. We are talking here about award-worthy cinematography, no less.
The acting is good, too, especially the beautiful Rebecca Ferguson and Michael Fassbender, who is too young for this part, but gives a decent performance.
Yes, there are some ridiculous scenes, especially the idiotic showdown, where Harry Hole survives and catches the killer by pure coincidence, but good producers could have fixed this through re-shoots. They didn't even try, it seems. They just gave up, because it was a lost cause.
How could the producers, screenwriters and director destroy a project that had so much going for it ?
This is one of the worst films of the year & one of the strangest film artifacts ever released in cinemas. It could serve as an example for filmmakers how NOT to edit a film or how NOT to tell a story.
I only gave it 2/10 because of the cinematography & I felt sorry for the actors.
A crime against cinema.