The Zodiac is coming for your Fincher!

Rating: 5/10 (9 March 2007)

ZODIAC 2007 (JAKE GYLLENHAAL, MARK RUFFALO, ROBERT DOWNEY, JR.) DIRECTED BY: David FINCHER ~ THE RUNDOWN: David Fincher better watch his a** because if the never-captured Zodiac Killer is still around, the guy might decide to slip his hood on one last time and enact revenge for this frighteningly paced catastrophe. ~ Well the Zodiac STILL hasn't had a good movie made about him, and with a case as horrifying and extremely intriguing as his - I'd be plain pis*ed off! I mean, wow, the guy went around in an executioner's outfit stabbing people in broad daylight, as well as totally messing with the San Francisco police department for years...yet, so far, every movie about the guy has just sucked, including this one, and I truly am disappointed because David Fincher is a brilliant filmmaker and his take on the Zodiac killings looked so promising. Yet, this movie, by no means, delivered and only makes the true events unappealing. The pacing was horrible and the screenplay was muddled and jumpy with no sense of where it wanted to go or how it wanted to present what happened. Now, I know it's based on a book, but I guess the book must suck too. Also, the Jake Gyellhaal/Reporter aspect of the story was boring, clichéd and basically the same thing as that straight-to-video Zodiac movie made recently with Rory Culkin in it. Everything about the film was completely expected with little to no innovation and I'm sorry to say Fincher, but your energies were completely wasted. And, what the hell was up with all the subtitles? They were definitely unnecessary every two minutes. ~ The movie was two and a half hours in length but seemed more like three and a half. Looking back on the film, most of the good stuff was foolishly jammed into the first hour or less and the rest of the film comes across as a tedious, incomprehensible cycle of Gyllenhaal running around getting information about the guy with little suspense and entertainment value. This is a problem because no one wants to sit there and listen to long strands of information read to them. That just plain sucks. It's true there was some genuinely funny dark humor, but not enough to compensate for its problems, and, anyways, this isn't a comedy and shouldn't be awarded points for a little cheap humor, despite the fact it was indeed tasty and very brilliant at times when Fincher somehow managed to showcase just a little of his brilliance here and find a middle ground between horror and dark humor. Furthermore, in Zodiac's support, Downey Jr. was amazing and with this movie he's finally starting to show how amazing of an actor he is again. Also, it was indeed very, very well and very consistently shot. Yet, in the end, Zodiac is easily a waste of time.