Birdman cleaned up at the Academy Awards for “Best Everything That Matters” this year. Even Michael Keaton won “Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy” at the Golden Globes. That’s unfortunate, since this movie is neither a musical, nor a comedy…
Birdman is film about a washed-up actor, played by Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice), who sinks all his money into a boring play in the hopes that it will re-ignite his career. He also thinks he’s a super hero. A super bird hero. A classic setup for some extra ordinary comic situations.
Unfortunately, this bird falls out the nest before it has a chance to fly. It may have been pushed out by its more funny bird siblings, namely, this bird, this bird, and definitely this bird.
Before we move forward, let us study what potential birds have in the world of comedy. For me, the funniest bird-related scene in movie history doesn’t involve a bird actor or actress. It doesn’t include a man dressed as a bird either. But the comic timing from Ryan Gosling and slapstick clowning from Rachel McAdams make this one of the funniest scenes ever written. Here it is:
True absurdist writing. Not afraid to look ridiculous. These are traits that make for good comedy. Traits that are sorely missing in La Inesperada Virtud de la Ignorancia, which ironically is translated into The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance. Ignorance of comedy, in this case, is no virtue.
Micheal Keaton is hilarious in Beetlejuice. He is hilarious in Multiplicity. He is hilarious in Jack Frost. One cannot help but feel that he was kept on a leash by director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who directed Babel, another misfire of epic proportions.
Keaton spends some time in a bird suit, yet he is not allowed to squawk or dance like a bird. Birds are funny. They move their heads in funny ways. Sometimes they fly into things like windows and planes. They are nature’s clowns, yet Keaton is tied up and told to keep his natural talent to himself. How can one be funny in a bird suit if one cannot act like a bird?
Keaton is supported by an unusually unfunny cast. Edward Norton, once again, fails to reach the heights he dared to reach in Death to Smoochie. He is responsible for the funniest scene in the movie, in which he fights Keaton in his underwear. One can’t help that if he stayed in only his underwear throughout the whole film, it would’ve upped the ante ten fold. How sad it is that the filmmakers failed to see that a character that refuses to wear clothes is funny. Especially because he is an actor and actors need to wear costumes. Now we have a funny character! Sigh.
Even Keaton has an underwear scene. It’s like Alejandro González Iñárritu could feel the comedy slipping away during production and his last desperate attempt to save the film was to throw in tighty whitey scenes. Very commendable, but too late in the game to save a film with so much potential.
Zak Galifunnyakis is useless. Again, not his fault. The blame lays squarely at the feet of director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Let us revisit what Galifunnyakis is capable of. Here is a masterclass from the man himself.
Instead, Galifunnyakis is bland and boring. Even his beard is boring.
Boring beard. Too much blue. Not funny enough glasses.
Emma Stone, Naomi Watts and Andrea Riseborough also star in this film. They aren’t chuckleworthy either. Emma Stones’ eyes are too big to be funny.
Performances and lack of birds aside, here are a few pros and cons of the film.
Pros
- Underwear scenes.
- Man dressed as bird.
- Lots of yelling.
- One very funny moment where a light falls on somebody’s head.
Cons
- No funny cutaways.
- No funny camera angles.
- No funny lighting.
- Actors told to be funny with their eyes only. Only Bill Murray can do that.
- No funny instruments in score. Drums only. And no use of comic ba-dush sound with said drums.
- No funny lines.
I can go on. But in short, Birdman should be called Boringman (The Virtue of Wishing We Had Used a Funnier Director). The message that the movie delivers is that Michael Keaton should do Beetlejuice 2, Edward Norton should do Death to Smoochy 2, and Zak Galifunnyakis should do The Hangover 4.
I can’t help but feel that a more qualified comedian would’ve made this film watchable. The great Rob Schneider has a history with working in animal-like comedies and he would certainly have brought some dignity to this flawed and hopeless film. I leave you with this example of what could have been:
Birdman gets 1 chuckle out of 5.
The Comedy Critique 