Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my second review of the day. I jump from Joel Schumacher to David Fincher.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, but the Zodiac killings were before my time. However, it's impossible to grow up there without hearing all about it from neighbors, parents and grandparents. And there's always some schmoe on the news who revisited the killings. I moved before the big Zodiac book hit, so everything from then on, including the assertion as to just who was the Zodiac killer, was something I missed.

I was very excited going into this movie. I loved SE7EN to death and the idea of Fincher taking on the Zodiac killer sounded great to me. I prepared myself for a different film from SE7EN thanks to some early word on the film and I'm glad I did because there's very little resemblance to Fincher's previous serial killer movie.

What is similar is the level of talent in front of the camera working at their absolute best. You have Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Brian Cox, Anthony Edwards, Chloe Sevigny, Elias Koteas (Casey Jones!), Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall and even Charles Fleischer, Roger Rabbit himself! And they're all fucking great. Especially Robert Downey Jr.

Downey plays a smart-ass reporter named Paul Avery who catches the eye of the Zodiac killer. Avery's a man of great ego, so this is very flattering, but soon the reality sinks in and Avery begins to have this haunted quality that was just fascinating to watch.

The movie is long and as a result we spend different segments in the shoes of different players in the whole Zodiac story. It's not until the end that we really spend a lot of time with Gyllenhaal, which was really surprising to me, but this part of the film was filled with the most suspense, mainly because of all the characters Gyllenhaal's gets the closest to discovering the killer. There's a sequence in a house that had me tense.

You also spend a lot of time with Anthony Edwards and Mark Ruffalo, two cops, partners, that spend decades tracking the Zodiac killer.

The descent into obsession is fascinating to watch. It's fascinating because you see so many different characters become obsessed with the Zodiac. Avery, Gyllenhaal's Graysmith, the two cops... every main character.

The killings are shown without much razzle-dazzle, making them feel very real, like you could be sitting there with the victims.

Fincher's film feels epic and you really feel they left no stone unturned. Everything you can imagine wanting to see about the Zodiac case is up there, on the screen and you have one of our most interesting filmmakers bringing it to life with a brilliant cast.

I highly recommend this one.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com