Zodiac
The Impossibility That I Will Not Like This Movie
David Fincher. If it’s a name you don’t know, hit yourself very hard… If it’s a name you know, you probably won’t need to read this review. It won’t do the film justice. Just watch the movie and love it. I first came to appreciate the absolute genius of David Fincher after watching Fight Club. I’d seen Se7en, but that was at a time that I naively believed that Steven Spielberg directed every movie… Yeah, I was a dumb kid… I hadn’t really planned on watching the Fight Club. But then a former boss of mine watched it and told me it was the worst movie he’d ever seen. With that I decided to watch it, not because I was in the mood for a bad movie, but because if Jay-Em hated it… It was probably going to be a good movie. So thank you Jay-Em…
The Review
I’ll start off by saying that I’m the wrong guy to write this. For several reasons really. The most important being that it will be impossible for me to give an unbiased opinion where David Fincher is concerned. Then take into consideration that I’m bad at writing reviews in general, I should just stop now.
The first thing that I liked about the movie were the studio logos. I know, that’s not quite what anyone cares about, but I liked it… The logos alone made you feel like you were watching an old movie. I know it wasn’t the Paramount and Warner Brothers logos that were being used in the late 60’s, but it achieved it’s purpose. It felt like you were watching a film from the late 80’s, where the story concluded. So yeah, a meaningless detail, that I really enjoyed.
Then the movie started for real, before I got over the awesomeness of the aged logos and the giddiness of seeing Fincher’s name one the big screen again for the first time since 2002.
The film lacked some of the visual styles I’d come to love, and yet still felt very much like a Fincher movie. It was like a toned down Se7en, focusing more on the strengths of the story and of it’s stellar cast, then on fancy camera moves and visual effects. It was a beautifully shot film.
I have only one real complaint about the movie. While the general consensus from the crowd as we left the theater was that it was too long. I personally felt it could stand to be a bit longer. Seems like a silly complaint of a movie that was nearly three hours long. I felt that it jumped around too much, which is to be expected of a movie that spans twenty years. There were parts it the beginning specifically that felt too choppy. One of the best transitions showing a lapse in time I’ve seen, certainly in a really long time, was the erecting of the Transamerica Pyramid. The movie could have been longer. I could just see parts where the film had been edited down for time, and I just didn’t think it was necessary. It was without a doubt a smart move and I guess that’s what the Director’s Cut DVD is for.
The Consensus
Exactly as I suspected, I loved the movie. Only one question that remains: Do I love the movie based on it’s own merits or because of David Fincher? Maybe a second viewing will tell me for sure. So, what are you doing tomorrow night?
