Compared with Se7en and Fight Club, Zodiac plays like a thoughtful PBS documentary. Critics are praising Fincher for what appears to be a movement towards mature storytelling. Sorry, no sale.

Individual scenes are gripping and, on occasion, suspenseful, but the gentle viewer must slog through mundane procedures that lead nowhere. Imagine a formless, three-hour CSI episode directed by Robert Altman, with no single character who takes the lead, no cohesive story arc, and no conclusion: there you have it, Zodiac.

I can't blame David Fincher, per se, because the source material is so diffuse, and the purported central character, Robert Graysmith, is so weak and peripheral. You stagger out of this movie like a survivor of a bad dinner party where everyone holds forth on the meaning of life... except everyone in the room has a combined IQ of 7. Hmmm. Seven? Maybe Fincher is guilty after all.