Review of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) by Wyman — 25 Oct 2014

This movie really should've been good, but I think the filmmakers got caught up in making oscar-bait as opposed to making an actually good movie. Let's start off with the acting: The acting is great, not phenomenal, but definitely deserving of some Oscar nominations. Edward Norton kills it, and gives the best performance in the film, but that shouldn't detract from the other performances. Keaton, Stone, Watts, Galifianakis; all of them are great. The writing is also good, but again, it's not phenomenal. It touches on many different aspects of Broadway, and show business in general, but at times seems corny and unrealistic. Overall, however, the writing is effective, and one of the better aspects of the film.

Now, the bad part. The shtick of the film is that it is all in one continuous shot. I assume this is because it is a story about a play, and thus this is to give it a play-like feel. However, this ends up making the film messy, and entirely distracts us from what is going on. There are tons of extreme close-ups that after a while get boring and repetitive. We feel like we're almost trapped in this theater, with all these characters, and like we can't escape. Yes, the shots are cool, but they do nothing to progress the story. Thus, they only exist so that critics can rave about the, "Unique, beautiful cinematography." It is unique, yes, but does that mean it is good? As they say, "...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should." If you made a film that was shot entirely using the color Brown, it would be unique, but nothing about that would make it a good film.

It isn't boring, and it isn't awful. However, it is over-hyped and over-done. It is well acted and written, but doesn't have any more substance than other films that consistently get looked over come oscar season; honestly, the film Bad Words has just as good of writing and acting as this, and I can guarantee you it will earn approximately zero Oscar nominations. Don't even get me started on the ending, where the film completely could have redeemed itself, only to flush that opportunity down the toilet in exchange for an ending that, while UNIQUE, entirely doesn't answer the questions proposed throughout the film.