A super discovery. The opening scenes with a perversely knowledgeable killer/pools of darkness/a rough and ‘scratchy’ look to the film and somewhat world-weary police was strongly redolent of Fincher and the opening of Se7en.
While there were some familiar tropes in the film – two disparate buddies investigating, initial mutual suspicion but then a developing mutual respect –these were well done and new elements, such as family trauma were intelligently included without giving us the sense of an element being forced onto the story but rather, it helped the story grow organically. The superhero theme was originally treated and very involving and gave a new view on graphic novels/superheroes etc etc.
As the film developed, and particularly near the end, I was not convinced by the relatively sudden romantic interest that was added – it did not seem necessary and it detracted from the very grim world that the film managed to create – and the final conclusion was not quite as satisfying as I felt it could have been –although it is tricky to put 0ones finger on exactly what that should have been.