This is the new James Bond

Dear Natalie,

It is a bit bizarre to write this up on Christmas Eve, because I found the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo anything but restful, peaceful, or even that hopeful. Still, I can’t stop thinking about it, so that has to count for something. Let’s leave aside the question of whether or not this movie even needed to be made given the excellent Swedish trilogy that is already completed (really, was this just for lazy Americans who won’t read subtitles?), because something different was going on in this film and it started for me with the opening titles.

Did you feel like you had accidentally stumbled into a James Bond film when the titles started to roll?