Awakening the Zodiac

Ever see a character who is just so dumb it hurts. You're torn struggling between stupidity rooting for a protagonist and having the murderer kill her? Well Leslie Bibb pulls this off magnificently. All of the stupidity of trailer park barbie just marches you down a trail while her hillbilly boyfriend is going bringing a shovel to a gun fight. Seriously? All of this dumb contained in one movie. I can deal with things that aren't plausible. I mean it's a movie suspension of disbelief is pretty standard, but when the characters do such nonsensical things it's hard to care. What should have been an average thriller with a decent mystery are buried by the stupidity and just annoying characters.

The most stupid characters I've ever seen! The girlfriend didn't even understand how a cipher works! The boyfriend wanted to fight everyone. The killer was a genius in his day, now he made huge mistakes. How is that plausible? Only positives were cinematography, score and editing, I suppose... Avoid at all costs, unless you want to actually lose some IQ-points!

Over 40 years since the infamous Zodiac killer terrorised inhabitants of San Francisco and surrounds, three people make an amazing discovery. They stumble across homemade films made by the Zodiac Killer, films of some of his murders. In an attempt to claim a large reward, rather than alert the police, they try to track down the killer themselves. This puts them in danger.

Pretty lame B-grade (at best) thriller. When I read the film summary I figured the movie was set in the 1960s, when the Zodiac Killer was at the peak of his infamy, making the danger more tangible. Having seen the excellent David Fincher-directed 2007 movie, Zodiac, I thought this may be something along those lines.

When I discovered it was actually set in 2017, my heart sank. Even if the killer is still alive, he's in their late-60s, at least, so what kind of thriller is this going to be? A dull, implausible, contrived one, I thought, and I was right.

Unoriginal, filled with every thriller/horror cliché, implausible, predictable, unengaging and quite dull. The Zodiac element was just a ploy to suck viewers in.

Avoid.

The real life, unsolved Bay Area Zodiac killer case gets a fictional exhumation four decades after the murderous spree, when a trio of junk collectors stumble upon canisters of incriminating film. This clever retro take on the YouTube crime clip phenomena presents our innocents with a chance at a $100,000 reward. And we're off.

For the most part, this is a terrifyingly terrific movie, full of creepy, shadowy scenes, hair- raising tension and clever comedic quips. Our trio of trailer trash Sherlocks are very engaging as they stagger into a complicated and dangerous world, not so much for possible riches, but also for adventure. Taunting cryptogram clues, a sinister hood, and creepy voice messages; the Zodiac put the "K" in killer.

Great stuff, but it is almost ruined with a messy, straight forward, by the numbers, uninspiring climax. Which in turn is then inexplicably thrown under the bus with an attempt at an open ended, confusing conclusion. It really does suffer from a proper wrap. "Awakening The Zodiac" needs a rewrite tweak focusing more on mystery than monster. Still a pretty good thrill ride.

I'll make this a short review since there is a couple longer ones already.

Basically, a young couple and their friend decide to track down the zodiac killer to receive the $100.000 reward, so they start investigating.

However, their behavior is absolutely ridiculous with no sense for consequences and danger at all. They have the maturity of toddlers and the intelligence you would expect from the average, stereotypical victims in horrormovies.

This is very frustrating since the movie and the basic plot sound really good and could've easily made an 8/10 movie if executed well.

I'd recommend the movie if you're looking for light entertainment and don't get fed up by the protagonists making predictable decisions.

The movie itself is alright but you can't watch it without rooting for the bad guy because the protagonists are absolute morons and poorly written.

Not even mentioning the end which is poor garbage and doesn't wrap up the film at all - pretty fitting for the movie...