Movie Review: Zodiac

In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.

This is a rather plodding police procedural. There are a few directorial flourishes, but lacklustre compared to David Fincher's previous work. After the first hour and a quarter - which is halfway through the movie - it's clear that there's no interest in create a taut thriller. It's a stitched together mini-series, without the episodic cliffhangers.

Robert Downey Jr can't act. He has the same voice, cadence, mannerisms as all his other characters. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the same mopey teenager that he's been playing since Donnie Darko. Compare and contrast to Mark Ruffalo who, thankfully, takes his acting seriously. It almost feels like watching the MCU gang cosplaying the 1970s. Chloë Sevigny is criminally under-used; she gets to roll her eyes a couple of times and that's it.

It's a movie about obsessive behaviour - but it never feels like the oppressive confines of obsession.

Despite a few lazy jump-scares at the start, it's just too dull to be scary. Disappointing and interminable. With no resolution it is, ultimately, a bit pointless.

⌖