Zodiac falls flat.

Rating: 5/10 (24 May 2007)

According to the poster this is 'Fincher's best film since Se7en' well they must have just forgotten a little known film called 'Fight Club' which in my opinion is a great movie and the last good film he made and after seeing Zodiac I haven't changed my mind. Long, too long and quite boring, there is no real story here, you never get the sense that they are after the killer hot on his heels like you did with Se7en and there is none of the visual flair that made 'Fight Club', 'Panic Room' and essentially Fincher a force to be reckoned with as a director. Instead you get Downey Jnr (Camping it up), Ruffalo (under-used) and Gyllenhaal (bumbling eye candy) all taking it in turns to get caught up in the muddling puzzle of the Zodiac killer. One of the troubles is the puzzles they are very exclusive to the cast, we as an audience are not really asked to do anything, solve anything or really even think, all we get to do is sit (for two and a half hours!) and watch these characters become obsessed and fall apart. Its not very exciting viewing I'm afraid, unless you're on of the many girls I've spoken to who liked it because they got to watch Gyllenhaal for that length of time then there's really nothing to it. The fact that it's a true story and they didn't catch the killer means there also no real ending either and the film just falls flat. The only glimmer of the old Fincher is in a scene where he overlays letters and puzzles from the killer over a montage of the films main players going about their business, its good but not enough. Don't get me wrong I wasn't expecting a 'Se7en' style film but I would have like to have had some characters I could care about and story that kept my interest especially at that length, but it just jumps from one place to another and at one point four years to when Gyllenhaal's character is married with three kids, frankly I'm surprised he had the time maybe his wife proposed in a cryptic note? Ultimately this is a bit of a let down from a director who showed so much early promise and vision only to go on to make straight forward and unchallenging movies. Here hoping his next project returns to former glories.