Spring Break
Movie Review: "Zodiac"
Issue date: 3/23/07 Section: The Edge
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Despite the incredible cast list associated with this overdone thriller, "Zodiac" turns out to be a massive waste of time. With a good hour of set-up, this film drags you into the false sense that you're watching a horror movie.
"Zodiac" starts out giving a new perspective of the serial killer: through the pressroom. In the beginning, the film shows potential with great names in all roles, and while the old-fashioned style seems comparable to "Hollywoodland," it dissolves slowly to parallel the latest "Black Dahlia" (starring Josh Hartnett. Don't even get me started on how bad that movie is). Jake Gyllenhaal has a decent performance as a cartoonist obsessed with solving the zodiac murders.
Robert Downey Jr. proves to be entertaining as a drunken and drugged wreck, but upon closer inspection his speech patterns are too much like Johnny Depp playing a drunken pirate.
Despite this problem, the actors in the film actually create a good performance.
The fault of the film is in the music score, the directing and the screenplay itself. The score composer tried to throw in some contemporary melodic material with typical synthesized strings in the background.
This combination alludes to some type of philosophical resolution that we never receive tonally; the music doesn't line up with the story. Maybe if it did, my opinion would be a little different (music is monumental in presenting a picture).
The directing was terrible as well; how many angles of the city can we see? I stopped counting. Future directors take note: Transitions do NOT need to ALWAYS be a pan of the city the story takes place in.
Not to mention how lengthy the transitions were; this true story does last many years, but the transitions between them need to be quicker and smoother. Plus, there are random shots of things or actors that draw too much significance to their parts in the picture; so many lingering camera shots were downright irrelevant.
Finally, I'll tell you what pissed me off the most about this film: the ending.
WARNING: if you don't want to know the ending, look away now. Not that I'm spoiling any surprise, because that would imply this movie had a purpose.
After three hours of reporting and investigating, the screen cuts to a small typewriter font to tell you what you already knew: that no one was ever arrested as the zodiac killer, only suspected.
When a film states something that we all already know, it had better be artsy as hell or have a new take on the ending. "Zodiac" does neither, so save your money for something more rewarding, fellow poor college students.
-Sara Gregory
edge staff
"Zodiac" starts out giving a new perspective of the serial killer: through the pressroom. In the beginning, the film shows potential with great names in all roles, and while the old-fashioned style seems comparable to "Hollywoodland," it dissolves slowly to parallel the latest "Black Dahlia" (starring Josh Hartnett. Don't even get me started on how bad that movie is). Jake Gyllenhaal has a decent performance as a cartoonist obsessed with solving the zodiac murders.
Robert Downey Jr. proves to be entertaining as a drunken and drugged wreck, but upon closer inspection his speech patterns are too much like Johnny Depp playing a drunken pirate.
Despite this problem, the actors in the film actually create a good performance.
The fault of the film is in the music score, the directing and the screenplay itself. The score composer tried to throw in some contemporary melodic material with typical synthesized strings in the background.
This combination alludes to some type of philosophical resolution that we never receive tonally; the music doesn't line up with the story. Maybe if it did, my opinion would be a little different (music is monumental in presenting a picture).
The directing was terrible as well; how many angles of the city can we see? I stopped counting. Future directors take note: Transitions do NOT need to ALWAYS be a pan of the city the story takes place in.
Not to mention how lengthy the transitions were; this true story does last many years, but the transitions between them need to be quicker and smoother. Plus, there are random shots of things or actors that draw too much significance to their parts in the picture; so many lingering camera shots were downright irrelevant.
Finally, I'll tell you what pissed me off the most about this film: the ending.
WARNING: if you don't want to know the ending, look away now. Not that I'm spoiling any surprise, because that would imply this movie had a purpose.
After three hours of reporting and investigating, the screen cuts to a small typewriter font to tell you what you already knew: that no one was ever arrested as the zodiac killer, only suspected.
When a film states something that we all already know, it had better be artsy as hell or have a new take on the ending. "Zodiac" does neither, so save your money for something more rewarding, fellow poor college students.
-Sara Gregory
edge staff
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