For all the hype surrounding Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (Babel, Biutiful) Birdman, I was highly unimpressed. Yes, it was an above-average movie. Yes, the directing was good. Yes, the acting was good. But I never felt anything remarkable about this movie, its directing, or its acting. According to www.indiewire.com, Academy Award nominations are a certainty for the film and for Iñárritu, Michael Keaton (as Lead Actor), Edward Norton (as Supporting Actor), Emma Watson (as Supporting Actress), and a host of others. I know this has been a terrible year for movies thus far, but there are still two months left. I still have incredibly high hopes for films like Interstellar, Nightcrawler, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, Wild, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Foxcatcher, and Unbroken. I hope more than a few of these movies break through and become the movies of 2014 you have to see. So far, I’ve been told that Birdman, Gone Girl, and Boyhood were the movies that you HAD to see. So far, those who have said this have been 0-for-3. Each of these movies has been above average (B- to B range), but I will not have lasting memories of any of them.
Birdman stars Keaton (Batman, Beetlejuice) as an iconic superhero who battles to establish himself after hanging up the cape (or bird wings in this case). Ironically, Keaton is playing the lead in Birdman, since you could essentially do this with him as Batman, and it could almost be a biopic. Some have guessed that this movie is a publicity ploy and has been in the works for years. However, even though Iñárritu wanted Keaton as his lead, he didn’t approach him on it until after the screenplay was written. But the fact that this movie does star Keaton, and many moviegoers can associate the real-life Keaton with Batman as his character in Birdman, I think, gives the film the impression that it is better than it is. Unfortunately, it is a slightly above-average movie. It does quite a few things well, but it does nothing extraordinary.
The movie centers around Riggan Thompson (Keaton). Riggan had reached blockbuster success with his Birdman franchise, but he decided to cut ties with the series after three movies. He’s been struggling to reestablish himself on the big screen ever since. Taking a different direction with his career, he decides to write, direct, and star in a Broadway play based on Raymond Carter’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As Riggan states, this is his last chance to do something meaningful. The play is set to open in a few days (the entire movie takes place over about five or six days), and things are a disaster.
Riggan is worried the play will flop. Just a day before a live preview, he brings in Mike (Norton – Fight Club, Rounders) to play the other male lead. Mike is an established movie star, and his presence alone is guaranteed to bring in a packed house, at least for the first few days. If Riggan’s play is terrible, he knows word of mouth will eventually cause him to close his doors. Mike is a bit of a douche-bag, but he has star recognition and knows the lines because he’s been rehearsing with his girlfriend Leslie (Naomi Watts – The Painted Veil, The Impossible), one of the two female characters in the movie. Riggan knows that, despite the baggage he brings, he needs Mike. And even if he didn’t know on his own, he crammed it down his throat by his manager, lawyer, and best friend Jake (Zach Galifianakis – The Hangover, The Campaign – in a role that you haven’t seen him before). He’s convincing as the realist of the movie.
When he’s alone, Riggan is a mess. He fears failure and constantly hears voices (it’s Birdman talking to him), filling his head with false beliefs. His relationship with his daughter, Sam (Emma Stone – The Amazing Spider-Man, Crazy, Stupid, Love), is at best fractured. His previous marriage to Sylvia (Amy Ryan – Gone Baby Gone, Dan In Real Life) was ruined by him. His current relationship with Laura (Andrea Riseborough – Disconnect, Oblivion) is not what they would classify as going anywhere. He’s a self-loathing, miserable man who is hellbent on correcting all of his past failures with this play. He knows that a well-known theater critic will attend his play on opening night, and that its success hinges on her review. In an encounter at a bar, she states that she doesn’t like washed-out movie stars taking up real estate when actual plays could be occupying that space. She says, in no uncertain terms, that she will destroy his play.
Birdman addresses the age-old question of how we can recapture the time of our life when we thought we were at our best. When that hope becomes more of a fantasy than reality, we sometimes fall into a depression and try to do things that maybe we aren’t comfortable with. Keaton’s desperation is evident throughout the film, but it is nothing we haven’t seen before in other movies. Seeing that Keaton, Stone, and Iñárritu each did something magical or visionary, here is not the case. This was not a bad movie. This was a slightly above-average movie in a below-average year for movies. I do not feel it is deserving of any of the Academy Award nominations it is supposedly going to receive.
You can do better at the movies right now. Fury and Gone Girl are better, and neither is excellent. The next two big ones are Interstellar and Nightcrawler. I still have hope for this year, but it is fading. I was hoping only my top 2 or 3 movies of the year so far would remain on my Top 10 of 2014. Unfortunately, I’m becoming less and less sure of that. Let’s hope that these next two, as well as The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, Wild, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Foxcatcher, and Unbroken, can give me something in the last two months of the year that all of the movies in the first ten months of 2014 have failed to do.
Plot 8/10 (it’s a decent plot, but it’s one of those been there, done that, got that t-shirt)
Character Development 7/10 (totally overrated)
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 7.5/10
Cinematography 7.5/10
Sound 7.5/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 9/10 (I think all of us can relate to trying to recapture glory in our lives that we may have previously lost)
79%
C+
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- Ed Wood
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- Kill the Messenger
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