I’d spent all last year hyping up the movie adaptation of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

I was more excited for this movie than for Christmas, and David Fincher did not disappoint me.

The casting in this movie was flawless.

Rooney Mara captured Lisbeth Salander exactly as I pictured her, especially her mannerisms and facial expressions.

The way she would stare blankly into space when her cruel guardian tried to talk to her.

Her voice was low and soft, but could flare up to be clear and sharp.

The matter-of-fact way she did everything, from lighting a cigarette to seducing someone, as if everything was going to happen simply because she decided it would. It was beautiful to watch.

I’ll try to tread lightly on Daniel Craig’s performance, since my favorable bias is pretty clear (my room is full of his posters.)

But I loved the book before I loved him, and I would have been angry if he hadn’t stayed true to Mikael Blomkvist’s character. Luckily, he delivered.

Blomkvist isn’t a James Bond kind of human superhero.

That’s what Salander is. Blomkvist is the everyman.

He whines when he gets hurt and handles situations awkwardly and expresses his emotions.

Salander is the sexual, weapon-wielding, tech-savvy one who’s always a step ahead.

The other characters were all perfectly suited to the movie, too. No moment felt out of place or unrealistic.

And the shots were gorgeous. Even as someone who doesn’t know much about the technical details of making a movie, I could recognize that it was visually pleasing and interesting.

The pacing felt right, despite the length of the movie (158 minutes), it doesn’t go through dry spells.

Some details from the book get changed or omitted, but nothing that detracts from the overall feeling of the world created inside the books.

Fincher has refused to hold back, and I applaud him for that.

It takes a certain kind of guts to read a book full of detailed descriptions of rape, gruesome serial murders, vicious revenge sequences and sex scenes and think “I can make this into a movie and people will go see it.”

Perhaps that was the appeal of the book in the first place. It was naughty and scary and rude, the kind of book you wouldn’t let your grandma near (well, my grandma actually loved it, but she’s kind of a badass).

At any rate, if you haven’t read or seen it yet, be warned.

It’s not for the faint of heart.