SOMETIMES LESS IS MORE (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO)

If you were going to choose a director for a Hollywood remake of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', it would in all likelihood be David Fincher.

In his 20 year career, Fincher has never flinched from movies that explore the dark side of human behaviour.

Despite getting off to a ropey directorial debut with 'Alien 3', he soon established himself with 'Seven' - a bleak 1995 thriller starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt which was the first in a series of movies to explore the capacity of people to carry out horrific acts of violence.

'Fight Club' in 1999 was a visually inventive and cleverly edited tale of a buttoned up insurance salesman (Edward Norton) who rebels against the banality of office life by discovering through Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) bare knuckle fighting, soap making and urban pranks.

'Zodiac', his 2007 film about a San Francisco cartoonist's obsession with a 1970s serial killer, is arguably Fincher's finest and most mature work - coaxing strong performances out of a cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr and Anthony Edwards.

In recent years, however, he has tried to stretch himself and there has been a definite shift in tone with the director opting, with mixed results, for the bittersweet subject matter of F Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' in 2008 - a love story in which Brad Pitt's eponymous hero underwent age reversal.

Two years later, the director returned with the 'The Social Network' - an entertaining character driven movie about the founders of Facebook.

But while it again boasted strong performances and was technically accomplished, it didn't feel like Fincher's film. 

With its razor sharp dialogue, 'The Social Network' was a rare beast in that it seemed to belong to its screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and his devoted legion of 'West Wing' fans who desperately needed their fix of snappy, savvy one liners.

It's easy to understand, therefore, why Fincher would want to retreat to the familiar territory of Stieg Larsson's phenomenally successful 'Millennium' trilogy, with its Swedish computer hacker heroine Lisbeth Salander and the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist.

Larsson's novels would appear to provide the director with the perfect vehicle to return to the bleak, bleak world of serial killers, religious extremism and indulge his passion for meticulous investigation.

But while all the ingredients are there for an edge of your seat thriller, the result is a movie that is surprisingly flat and which, at times, leaves a very unpleasant aftertaste.

Those of you familiar with Larsson's novel or Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 Swedish big screen adaptation will know that 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' begins with Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) losing a libel case.

With his reputation damaged, the investigative journalist is thrown a lifeline by the industrialist Henrik Vagner (Christopher Plummer) who hires him to look into the disappearance and possible murder 36 years earlier of his niece, Harriet.

Blomkvist is lured by Vagner to an island, where the industrialist and his odd collection of Nazi sympathising siblings live, on the promise that he will receive, once his investigation is completed, information about the businessman who successfully sued him for libel.

Monitoring Blomkvist's activities is the gifted computer hacker and dragon tattooed goth Salander (Rooney Mara) who is eventually engaged by the journalist to help him research the events surrounding Harriet's disappearance and the activities of a serial killer.

Fincher's movie is technically accomplished but, at times, is as cold and wooden as the cabin Blomkvist and Salander use as their base.

The film looks great and is a considerable improvement on the 2009 original which looked like a television adaptation.

Fincher's regular cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth and his costume and set designers should feature in awards nominations.

However he is let down by a bloated screenplay from Steven Zaillian and an unengaging central performance by Daniel Craig who seems content to play second fiddle to Rooney Mara who has essentially a star making role.

Mara acquits herself well but suffers by comparison with Noomi Rapace in the Swedish original, whose Salander had less cold steel and more of an air of mystery about her.

Christopher Plummer and Steven Berkoff also turn in decent supporting performances but the villain of the piece (in all senses of the word who will remain nameless for those of you intending to go to this whodunit) turns in a performance that is pure Scooby Doo. 

Fincher's film contains some graphic scenes of violence, in particular sexual violence - scenes that are true to Larsson's original novel and also in the 2009 adaptation.

But those scenes in many ways illustrate just why 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' feels such a step back for Fincher.

'Seven' and 'Zodiac' were at their most powerful where violent acts have occurred offscreen or where the characters encountered the horrific aftermath.

The sadistic violence of 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' is very much in your face.

Sometimes less is more, as Alfred Hitchcock demonstrated for much of his career - with mind games proving more blood curdling than explicit brutality.

Disappointing box office in North America may prevent Fincher from completing the Millennium trilogy.

In the meantime, he will adapt Michael Dobbs' 'House of Cards' for another small screen outing with Kevin Spacey as the corrupt Tory chief whip, Francis Urquhart plotting his way to 10 Downing Street.

One can only hope Urquhart's naked political ambition will be enough to help Fincher rediscover his directorial fire.

('The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' opened in UK and Irish cinemas on December 26, 2011. This review originally appeared on Eamonnmallie.com)