Let’s start at the beginning, and the beginning would be the previews. Honestly, there aren’t very many, but because trailers are so much longer than regular commercials, it just seems like a lot. After the first few trailers, I’m like, “okay, so is the movie done yet?” But no, we had about three more hours to go. That’s the movie, not the previews, by the way.
Not that I’m complaining about the length, because it was good, and good movies are allowed to be long. I did, however, look at my watch at around the hour and a half mark, because that’s a decent time limit for a movie, right? But you couldn’t really tell this story in an hour and a half. So again, not complaining, but don’t go in there expecting three hours of blood and gore, because you aren’t getting that.
Back to the previews. “Disturbia”. Ohh… what can I say? After about two seconds I thought, “oh, okay, a ‘Rear Window’ remake”. But apparently some people are saying it’s not supposed to be a remake and others saying it is.
Now, I’ve always thought the people who hated remakes were just plain crack pots, you know? I really don’t know why or how, but I’m feeling the same as them towards this movie. I mean, I’m not a Hitchcock fan, and I only saw the last half of this movie, but something about remaking a movie without naming it after the original bothers me, I guess. At least by naming it after the original, kids would realize that it is a remake, and this filmmaker isn’t a genius for coming up with such a plot.
On to the actual movie. I don’t know if this really needs a spoiler warning or not, because I’m assuming most people that go to see this movie know about the Zodiac Killer and know how it ends.
The people who didn’t see “Zodiac” apparently went to see “Wild Hogs” instead. And that was apparently just about everyone. I watched the trailer for “Wild Hogs”, and well, I couldn’t get through it. What’s up with these actors who used to be in good movies doing crappy movies? I don’t like that. So stop it. And people, go see “Zodiac” instead, because it is good.
Now, any movie that takes place in the sixties and/or seventies has got to be pretty good, at least for me. Although, I have to admit, I found it quite scary that it took place in the sixties, in San Francisco, no less! I thought to myself that I’ll need to remember where and when these things happened so I can avoid these places while I’m time travelling. ;)
Movies set in the sixties and seventies, that’s pretty cool. Good music, good clothes (weeeell, for the most part), cheesy facial hair… love it. Speaking of that, I can’t recall seeing him in any movies before, but Robert Downey Jr. is pretty cute. But it may just be the whole beard thing tricking me into thinking that. That tends to happen a lot, I’ve noticed.
I usually never notice continuity issues, but the scene in Avery’s house with the Pong game that was continually stuck at 15 to 9 (occasionally going to 14) really bugged me. I found my eyes pretty much glued to the Pong game, hoping it would start working properly. But it never did.
My parents thought the stabbing scene was unnecessary, but I didn’t find the violence all that bad. Usually I’m the one complaining about unnecessary scenes, but to be honest… I could’ve used a little more cowbe — I mean, violence. I know, I know, how awful does that sound? But it’s a movie about a serial killer, you kind of expect a lot of blood and stuff. And I don’t even like that! But it just didn’t seem quite right to me, you know?
I saw a few people on the IMDB boards complaining about the “lake scene” violence, and I’m now beginning to think I must’ve subconsciously been looking at the background instead of watching the people being killed.
I really wanted that couple at the lake to live. Everything was going good for them, they were doing what he said, and they were quite amusing characters. For awhile, it looked like the Zodiac was just going to take the car and split! But the guy just had to go and ask the killer if the gun was loaded. What fucking moron.
There were quite a few funny parts in this movie, which was nice. Just some nice, tasteful, truly funny jokes. The movie theatre scene was just hilarious, but you literally had to be there. If you don’t watch the movie at the theatre, then it’s really not funny at all. But honestly, how many movies have scenes that take place in a movie theatre? The only other one I can think of that I personally saw in the theatre was “Austin Powers III”. But I mean, I was watching “Austin Powers”, so obviously I hadn’t developed my sense of humor yet. I know many people wouldn’t find that scene funny at all, but I just thought it was worth a mention.
Speaking of my sense of humor, I was reading on IMDB and someone mentioned there being another Zodiac movie a few years ago. Actually, it sounded quite familiar to me. Anyway, I checked out that movie’s boards, and people were talking about how stupid it was to release two movies about the same thing in such a short time. Then people started naming other similar movies released within a year or so of each other. I found myself thinking, “all right, but apart from ‘Deep Impact’ and ‘Armageddon’, ‘Dante’s Peak’ and ‘Volcano’, and ‘Wyatt Earp’ and ‘Tombstone’… what have the Romans ever done for us?”
…is that wrong? Heh heh heh…
One thing that really bugged me was the main character’s girlfriend/wife, Melanie. First off, she knew what she was getting into the minute she met him. I really didn’t think she would stick around too long, because not many women would. But if I was her and I was sticking around, then I would’ve wanted to be in on it too! I would’ve been right with him, reading code books and visiting psychos with film canisters in their basement! How awesome and exciting would that be?
And about the guy with the basement. Whatever happened to him? I mean, first of all, he’s got a basement! And he’s seen that movie. AND his handwriting matched! Why no further investigation? Of course, it could have just been left out of the movie, true enough. But right off in that scene when I saw him lock the door… well, I knew something bad was going to go down. I don’t understand why cartoon guy didn’t get the hell out of there sooner.
I may be remembering incorrectly, but I thought a lot of letters were from copycats, but that was never mentioned in the film. They never even suggested that the letters possibly could have been written by someone else. The only time we really heard of any copycats was with the call-in show. That kind of confused me.
Reading some more about the case, I find that three of the cryptograms were never solved? Why was that not mentioned at the end? You never know, some history teacher may have saw this at the end and went home and solved it!
So, we’re at the end. True, kind of disappointing, because they never find out who it is. But you should be going into this movie realizing that, and you shouldn’t be expecting any closure. Just a presentation of the facts that, who knows, may lead to closure as more people are exposed to it. But I mean, probably not.
They can’t very well go and change the ending though! You can’t change real life! If they did, well, that would just be plain stupid, just to give people have a nice happy ending. Stupid. Movies don’t need happy endings. When will people learn that? I do believe that movies need strong endings though, which is why I think I start so many projects and don’t finish them; because I can never make up sufficient endings.
And also probably why so many of my posts go on for so long. Heh heh.