It sprawls across time, across characters, and across victims

Rating: 5/10 (29 June 2011)

This is a vast, sprawling, and lengthy film directed by David Fincher, which gets nowhere in the end, and was probably a pointless exercise. It is the story of a search for a psychotic serial killer who calls himself 'Zodiac'. The story is based upon real case files from California, and covers several decades. Characters come and go, and it is difficult to keep focus on any of them, as they are so transient and lightly-sketched. The mysterious 'Zodiac', who was never found, drew his inspiration from a film of the 1930s, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, aka THE HOUNDS OF ZAROFF (1932), with Fay Wray and Joel McCrea. In that film, a man hunts humans as if they are animals, for sport. I have seen the earlier 1930s film, and it is rather mediocre, in addition to being distasteful, hence not worth reviewing, no matter how much one may like Fay Wray. There was a time when it was thought shocking enough to make films about killers. But those days are long gone. So jaded are the tastes of contemporary audiences that only serial killers will do, as one murder is no longer shocking at all. This is, of course, a sign of decadence, when murder no longer shocks, and only a series of ingenious murders by a brilliant clever psychopath any longer has the power to titillate (note that I say titillate rather than shock). I really don't believe movies like this should be made, as I have said before, and I shall say again.