Evil shall with...wait, what? That doesn't make sense

I saw the US remake of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Thursday night and I loved it. It was one of the most faithful Hollywood adaptions of any book I have seen. I loved the two main actors in the role. Rooney was in my mind a better Lisbeth then the original was. She was scary and awesome. And her accent was actually good! I hate actors who don't even bother to do accents in films that need them (looking at you Tom Cruise in Valkyrie). I thought Rooney was much more beautiful than the Swedish actress who played Lisbeth. I really hope Rooney gets nominated for an award.

And Daniel Craig (despite not doing an accent) was an adorable Mikel. He fit the role perfectly and looked like how I imagined the character did. The only thing I did not like about the movie was the stupid tagline on the posters!

Evil shall with evil be expelled? Who the hell wrote that? It doesn't make sense as a proper sentence. It should be evil shall be expelled with evil. Who made that stupid mistake? Did they not try to read it out loud before agreeing it should be on the poster? Also what are they trying to say? Are they calling Lisbeth evil? Lisbeth is not evil. She is not a traditional hero. She is flawed (very much so) and violent and does not care for the rules. But that does not make her evil. It makes her realistic and believable.

The old fashioned heroes of fiction who are honorable, brave, and never make a mistake are not realistic. There is darkness and light in everyone. Lisbeth does horrible things to some people, that's true, but it does not make her evil. It make her an anti-hero. She does good and bad things. She is neither black or white. She is grey. She is intriguing as hell because she is so unpredictable the reader never knows what she is going to do less. Is she going to break the law for her own benefit....or is she going to stop a murder?

I read that the director doesn't think that Lisbeth is a hero and doesn't like people calling her one which is probably why that tagline ended up on the poster. Lisbeth is not a traditional hero, that's true, but does that mean we have to jump straight to calling her evil? She's not that either. She's a victim of sexual and physical violence who learnt at a young age that the only one she can depend on is herself. She lives by her own rules and will not hesitate to defend herself and to dish out her own special form of revenge on people.

Her actions are morally wrong and questionable...but understandable.