why so old and ugly? - Luftslottet som sprängdes (2010) Discussion

lol

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People who look like actual humans tend to be a bit jarring to modern movie audiences.

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Not to all of us. I think Michael Nyqvist is very sexy indeed. I loved the way he played Blomqvist - he has a gentle, intelligent and determined quality that fitted the character beautifully. He'll be very hard to replace. I gather Daniel Craig is doing the remake, but I don't like him that much - he has no top lip. To be fair to Daniel, though, he's a pretty good actor.

I don't know about the actress replacing Noomi Rapace. Noomi was so perfectly cast, it's very hard to imagine anyone else being so brilliant.

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[–] Malgorzata64 13 years ago

I like the actors. I'm one of those who think they look more like real people than in most of the American movies.

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[–] Lady_Targaryen 12 years ago

I'm one of those who think they look more like real people than in most of the American movies. [2]

Agreed!

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[–] beja-4 12 years ago

Mee three! I just love Michael Nyqvist, I find him really sexy despite he doesn't have a gorgeous look. And I find him really great playing Blomkvist.
And can Michelle Pfeiffer hit on him at the Venice Film Festival, he can't be that bad...

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[–] clonghurst 13 years ago

Snowbunnie
I agree completely about the casting. Michael Nygvist was perfect in my opinion.
Just human. Admirably so. And he appreciates Lisbeth in fundamental ways and is not afraid to say so.
I found the characters to be REAL, not necessarily attractive or unattractive , just real people reacting to shocking and immediate circumstances in sometimes very surprising ways.
Lisbeth in particular is both attractive and unattractive in various circumstances and entirely real and sympathetic.
Noomi Rapace is outstanding as Lisbeth. There can be no one who will do better in the role.

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[–] daryl-b-t 13 years ago

It's a rare day when the characters in a movie approach the complexity of real people like in this series.

So you want everyone to be beautiful? That kind of plastic phoneyness you can get all the time, complete with perfect, never out of place hair. It's boring. It's fantasy.

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[–] RusEvo 13 years ago

I think the author of this thread has been brainwashed by American movies, where the only people worth caring about or taking an interest in have perfect skin, perfect teeth etc etc (even if playing a dirt poor peasant from the middle ages, or a normal everyday person).

One thing I loved about this series of movies is that these actors are unknown to me, and look completely normal.....as such it is very easy to beleive the characters. If Tom Cruise played Bloomkvist and Julia Roberts played Lisbeth it wouldnt really be the same would it?

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[–] Ambrosia-I 13 years ago

Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts - it doesn't bear thinking about! Or what about Brad and Angelina? It could be a thread all of its own - "List the most inappropriate Hollywood stars to play the parts".

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[–] RusEvo 13 years ago

Thread starter arikolsh wouldnt mind.

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[–] Miss_Sui_Generis 13 years ago

Not to play Devil's advocate, but I noticed that the interior scenes used very harsh light which made some actors look a bit rough and haggard. The actress playing Erika looked older than I expected her to because of the shadows cast across her face.

Let's assume the OP is American. He might live in the sort of community where most people are young, or trying to appear so- a university campus, or a neighborhood close to one,for example. Or he might be under 30 and working in a high-tech firm-another area in which youth and its images are prevalent.
Also, in some regions of the US, people avoid regularly drinking hard liquor,getting a tan from the sun or a tanning bed,and smoking. Any of the three can affect a person's appearance;especially UV exposure. In short, the OP might not have a clue what the average person over 40 looks like!

I think Noomi Rapace is beautiful. She didn't match the novel's descriptions of Lisbeth perfectly-in the first film she brought to mind a twenty-ish Romanian gymnast rather than an anorexic teenager or a doll. However, her beauty,intensity and acting ability were so amazing that it didn't matter. Mikael N. looked fine.

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[–] RusEvo 13 years ago

Its hard to imagine the OP has never had exposure to older people.......but not hard to imagine that there are people who think movies should be filled only with "hotties".....lol.

I thought the movie felt well casted.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Miss_Sui_Generis 13 years ago

Or the OP might literally live in film land.In Southern California, even the mail carriers and door-to-door salesmen are good-looking.I went to the University of Southern California, and like any college or university in the Los Angeles area, the students and the professors were startlingly attractive. In Northern California, the emphasis is on health rather than glamour.

I thought the same thing about Italy-there were beautiful people all around-whenever I could take my eyes off the architecture.

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[–] Strazdamonas 13 years ago

i know couple people who would watch a movie only becuase there is a "hottie" in there, therefore a lot of bad movies use "hotties" to attract audience, and whats more worrying - suceeds.

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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire

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[–] keith66-1 13 years ago

While I don't agree with the OP, I do think that the characters in the movies look little like they are described in the novels. Aside from Lisbeth, that is.

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[–] Malgorzata64 13 years ago

Look like? How about ARE like?

Some characters are quite clearly describe in the book, but still, an actor has to always create a character. I think many characters are very nicely created and interesting. I love Mikeal, I love Erika, Palmgren or even Isabela and Martin Vanger or Bjurman. Especially Bjurman is really creepy.

Great characters, some of them great villains.

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[–] keith66-1 13 years ago

I'm not saying that the actors didn't do a good job. It's just that having read the novels I was a little surprised seeing someone like Erika, who is supposed to be a fox, and isn't in the movie. Sorry if you disagree.

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[–] Malgorzata64 13 years ago

I'm going now through all 3 books paying attention to Bloomkvist, how he looks. There is really not much about it. There is more description about how Henrik Vanger looked than how Bloomkvist looked. I will probably write a text about it.

I have never had a hung up about how the actors look, because I had seen the movies before reading books, and as such I just don't get this obsession (in my view) with how this or that actor looks like. But the characters they created are great and, in my opinion, don't go against the descriptions in the book. Well, with one exception - Evert Gullbert in the third movie. But nobody ever complained about him. ;)

Lena Endre was 7-8 years older than Erika when they shot the movie. Just imagine that Erika is 52-53 years old, is that such a huge problem? And yeah, without botox, and without kilos of makeup, and perhaps she will look better in your eyes. She looks like an attractive woman in the movie, just some years older than Erika in the book.

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[–] keith66-1 13 years ago

I have no problem with how Lena Endre looked as far as the films are concerned, and I'm not a fan of botox and all that. All I'm saying is that seeing her for the first time on the screen was a bit of a shock compared to how she was portrayed in the books. But the films did away with most any of the material from the books that would have made it necessary for her to be "sexy" anyway.

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[–] Malgorzata64 13 years ago

Yeah, it did. I still think she is quite okay.

Speaking of getting rid of material, the movies also got rid of the material that make Mikael a playboy.

I have no time now to write about Larsson's Mikeal, but I think I did found everything that is said on the subject, and there are some differences between the Swedish original and the English (British) translation in this regard.

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[–] keith66-1 13 years ago

Usually I'm opposed to remakes but I'm actually looking forward to it for those reasons. The original film adaptations left so much out and changed a lot of what they did keep. Obviously there will be things that the remake can't touch, like Rapace's performance, but I'm hoping they will stick more to the source material.

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[–] Miss_Sui_Generis 13 years ago

That's my reason for seeing a different adaptation as well. Noomi Rapace was amazing, yet it will be great if the new film keeps Lisbeth's & Mikael's best dialogues from the books.

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[–] sacknballs 13 years ago

not to get into a whole American vs foreign cinema thing, but I thought almost all of the actors chosen were poor choices based on their physical descriptions in the books. it's repeated several times, in several ways throughout the books that Lizbeth is about 4' 11" and 90 lbs. Noomi is no giant, but she doesn't come close to those dimensions. It's relevant in the book that she's tiny, but in the movie she's more of a normal female's size. Mikael isn't handsome enough, Erika is WAY too old, etc. I like all the actors and they played the parts well but from a physical depiction standpoint, the casting was way off on almost every major character. American, Swedish, Dutch, whatever, the casting of the American version is much better based on the book's descriptions. It's one thing to have original characters look more 'everyday people' but when they're based on characters in a book it's different.

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[–] gallaghermp 12 years ago

The OP might have put it inelegantly, but that was my initial impression, too! I'm sorry, but Michael just did NOT look like a Lothario. I had trouble getting past his skin. Sorry. Blame it on being superficial or whatever, but that's the way it is. On the other hand, I did think Lisbeth was very well cast!

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[–] gallaghermp 12 years ago

..and don't get me started on Erika looking too old! I don't think it's an American vs. European thing or anything like that. It's a question of their not fitting the descriptions in the book!

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[–] TwoCoreysRiverPhoenixFever 13 years ago

I cant wait for the american version

I can. I'd rather watch a speech by Obama or Fahrenheit 9/11 over and over again than the American Version of this!!!

It wouldn't kill them to write an original movie script!

“TONG PO RAPED ME!”

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[–] jcollin3k 13 years ago

I agree...when I first saw Erika in the movie, I thought the actress cast is totally wrong for what the character was described as in the book. Looked way older. I do not find it believable that someone looking like Blomkvist could be such a ladies man either.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jamesmurphybb 13 years ago

Ah, the American version. Why must Americans re-make (meaning screw up) everything? That's a discussion for another topic, I suppose.

Either way, I disagree with the OP. I think Lena Endre, the gal who played Erika, is extremely good-looking. Like, unbelievably good-looking. She's got that sophistication most women lack.

All of this being said, I won't watch the American version. Amerikanerna förstöra allt.

My 2 cents.

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[–] cherubalways 13 years ago

and hopefully you'll get your due

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[–] moviequeen123 13 years ago

I was personally thrilled that the woman playing Erica was age appropriate to the leading man. Hell, the actress is even 5 years older than him. And I think she's amazing looking. We live in a world where the actresses are normally 20 years younger or more than their male counterparts in American movies. Ridiculous. People don't have to look "Hollywood perfect" or forever young to be attractive, you know.

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[–] sacknballs 13 years ago

if anything, don't knock American movie executives who actually cast her correctly in the American version, blame the author. He's the one who described her to be 'Hollywood Perfect'. The Swedish director got it wrong, plain and simple. She looks like my grandma, not the attractive woman she's supposed to be. Age appropriate to the leading man? that just doesn't have anything to do with anything. Mikael sleeps with Lisbeth, was she age appropriate? It's not about what society thinks is appropriate or beautiful or whatever -- IT'S AN ADAPTATION OF A BOOK. IF IT WANTS TO STAY TRUE TO THE BOOK, ERIKA SHOULD LOOK MUCH YOUNGER AND MORE ATTRACTIVE. if it doesn't attempt to stay true to the book, your points are all immaterial.

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