For David Fincher, carnage is language. In films like Se7en and Zodiac, psychopaths express themselves through fanciful atrocities. So an adaptation of the first book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy, with its flamboyantly grisly sex crimes, would seem a return to form after the cerebral and verbal The Social Network. Unfortunately, Fincher doesn't add much to Niels Arden Oplev's Swedish version: more Googling and plot-compressing montages and an altered but still convoluted ending. And a different cast. Daniel Craig brings more pizzazz to investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist, called on by a rich industrialist to investigate an old case of a missing girl. Rooney Mara, like Noomi Rapace, fully inhabits the role of Lisbeth Salander — punk Terminatrix, computer whiz, and avenger of women against privileged wickedness. Together they subvert gender stereotypes and have the hottest sex scene of the year.
