Mixed reviews that inadvertently describe what's so great about the movie in question

Plucked from the Metacritic page for David Fincher's (brilliant) Zodiac (which, by the way, currently stands at a lofty 77):

"Bits of the picture are fascinating to look at, but eventually, exhaustion kicks in, to the point where we're not sure what we're looking at, or why." - Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

"At times, it becomes frustrating -- for example, about 30 minutes are spent pursuing a lead that goes nowhere." - Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle (heh)

"The film feels self-obsessed, an intriguing drama that slowly devolves into a bleak meditation on the absence of dramatics." - Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

"In some ways, for better and for worse, this is even more about Graysmith (Jake Gyllehaal)--who became obsessed with solving the Zodiac killings that terrorized northern California in the late 60s--than about the murderer." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

"That's exactly the problem with this movie: It's not about a killer, or his victims, or the manhunt or the cops. They're all in it, of course, more or less. But it's about a writer." - Stephen Hunter, Washington Post

(For the record, I'll later be writing my own thang about Zodiac, so don't think I'm just taking a piss at those with a deadline.)