Present in the book and Swedish film are the alcoholics (Lacke, Virginia, the others). Although I felt sorry for Lacke's losses, until I read the book, they barely felt like important characters at all except in the regard that they helped to advance the plot. They felt too distracting from the main characters in the Swedish film, and Reeves solved this problem by keeping them in LMI, but reducing their roles and bringing in the police investigation to help advance the plot (Which actually was a critical part of the book, yet was not in the Swedish film). In LMI, Larry and Virginia are just minor characters, yet in their few moments on screen, they are living characters, you can just watch to understand that they're a strained couple (as evident in their frequent arguments), and you do feel sorry for Larry as he is losing his wife, but at the same time, they don't distract the viewer from Owen and Abby. (You also see Virginia biting herself as a vampire, which was also in the book, but not in the Swedish film.)
Hokan (Yes, I know how his name is spelled, but in the Scandinavian alphebet, the a under a circle is pronounced like a deep O) is a character as vital as Eli and Oskar, but in the Swedish film, although you feel sorry for him, you don't understand him much as a character unless you read the book. You know that he cares for Eli, but you don't know why he cares and kills for Eli. Unless you read the book, you don't know how deep of a character he is, the struggles he faces, and the fact that he loves Eli as a pedophile. In LMI, they likewise couldn't fit so many details of his character into the movie either, but through the direction and Richard's acting, he is a much more human character than in the Swedish film, letting his actions speak for him, and you later understand that he loved and procured blood for Abby because he in fact was her boyfriend since he was around 13 years old. (Also, though one who read the book would care for Hokan, if they tried to blatantly throw in either film that he was a pedophile, believe me, most viewers who didn't read the book would NOT like him and would rather want to see him get busted by Chris Hansen.
)In the book, the main bad guys of the story themselves, the bully Jonny and his brother Jimmy, are actually very human characters that the reader can relate to and pity for. However, in the Swedish film, you only feel sorry for Conny and his friends in the end when they suddenly feel the weight of what would've happened to Oskar. When you first see Jimmy, you see him teasing Conny, so you kinda get that Conny is a jerk because his brother is one, but as you see him getting mildly teased in the Swedish film, you don't feel sorry for him at all. (Also, before Jimmy runs in, WHY did they have Conny yelling random insults at people walking by? He just looks like an idiot when he does it and it makes you just hate him more.) However, in LMI, you see Kenny being outright bullied and humiliated by his brother in front of his friends, as his brother calls him "little girl" just as Kenny calls Owen, which makes you actually kinda pity Kenny as a living character, as opposed to hating him more and feeling as if he had been getting more of what he deserved.
This also leads to another major component of the film, the bullying. I really liked the horror scenes of LMI, but what I found most horrific and frightening of all were indeed the bullying scenes, as LMI did a better job than the Swedish film in capturing the feeling and fear of getting bullied. Make no mistake, bullying in fact causes many youths all over the world to not go to school out of fear of bullying, I've seen it and I've been bullied myself, it really is frightening to endure. LMI also did a much better job than the Swedish film in capturing Owen's isolation and insecurity, as he had neglectful parents and no friends until he met Abby. Also to be noted is that in LMI, Oskar is shown to suffer urinary incontinence, which he is severely bullied for, and he eats a lot of junk food to bury his troubles, which are all details present in the book but not the Swedish film. As the plot unfolds, viewer really understands how society's neglect and mistreatment of Owen drove him down the path of evil.
LMI is also criticized for its use of Special Effects. People criticize how the CG looked crappy in the Jogger scene, and although it could've been better, the scene was darkened to the point where you don't really notice the CG, and I think the cast did a fine job with that. People criticize how Abby's face changed in "Vamp-mode" and how she had super powers when she did so, but they forget that it was in the book, as Eli's face did change in the part where Oskar cut his finger to make a blood pact, and as a vampire, she had to have had super-powers in both films as well as in the book. LMI is also criticized for leaving out the "Be me" scene, and although I don't think it would've hurt to keep it in the main film, you can watch it as a deleted scene, and Matt Reeves is kinda right that the viewer would already understand that Owen would not let Abby go and would do anything for her in the scene where he holds her after she stopped bleeding, which is also of course enforced by the cop's death scene and the pool scene.
All in all, I liked LMI better than the Swedish version as a film, in terms of quality, which is more important than quantity, because through the acting, production, and direction, the story of LMI is fleshed out and humanized on screen better in the Swedish film. Now again, I have nothing against the Swedish film, I really did enjoy watching it, but simply not as much as LMI. Both LMI and the Swedish version are great films, and people forget that LMI is an adaption, not a remake. What truly separates LMI from LTROI is that LMI deals with different themes and a different setting, in which that it does not have to follow the book 100%, it has enough variation to stand out as its own film, whose characters, although based on the same archetypes, are technically different from the Swedish characters. (LMI is also criticized for omitting Eli's castration and making Abby a girl, but keep in mind that Abby is a different character than Eli. I actually liked how when Abby said, "I'm not a girl," she did not mean "I was a boy," she meant "I'm not human. I am nothing," as she was expressing her guilt and shame over what she had done, as well as her isolation, and in that regard, I find her a much deeper character than Eli was in the Swedish movie.) Although of course, the best way to experience the story is by reading the book, which neither of the films put together come close to topping.
(Sorry about making such a long post, I just had to get it all out there!)
