I wasn’t sure what to make of this movie. When I saw the previews several months it looked fantastic. Great director (David Fincher, “Seven”), stellar cast (Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr., Chloe Sevigny) and a very interesting, and still insolved, mystery. But then rumors were all over the web that it was getting bumped and then bumped again. For awards afficionados, a March release is often a kiss of death. But all that appears to be untrue because reviews for this film are very good.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times
David Fincher’s magnificently obsessive new film, “Zodiac,” tracks the story of the serial killer who left dead bodies up and down California in the 1960s and possibly the ’70s, and that of the men who tried to stop him. Set when the Age of Aquarius disappeared into the black hole of the Manson family murders, the film is at once sprawling and tightly constructed, opaque and meticulously detailed. It’s part police procedural, part monster movie, a funereal entertainment that is an unexpected repudiation of Mr. Fincher’s most famous movie, the serial-killer fiction “Seven,” as well as a testament to this cinematic savant’s gifts. . .
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
. . . Put your whodunit expectations away when you visit Zodiac. It’s the process that pins you to your seat. A film this painstaking and tenacious won’t appeal to those in it strictly for the blood lust. Fincher is a powerhouse filmmaker, but he doesn’t pander. He shakes you up in ways you don’t see coming. Thanks to him, the still-new movie year, littered with barf-inducing Hollywood formula (hello, Norbit), has busted out with something unique and unmissable.
Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat Gazette
As much character study as true crime procedural, David Fincher’s low-key, brown and gray Zodiac is an engaging and precisely calibrated psychological thriller with a terrific ensemble cast and a surety of pacing that belies its almostthree-hour running time. It’s a mature and deeply affecting work that, despite its early opening date, is destined to be considered one of the best Hollywood movies of 2007. . .