Review of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) by Jamie J — 26 Jun 2016

Birdman is downright bizarre, and after a first watch I'm not actually quite sure it deserved to sweep the Oscars so convincingly, despite it being really rather good. You can see a hell of a lot of parallels between Michael Keaton's role and his own personal experiences after playing Batman twice in real life, especially when Birdman plays itself a little too on the nose with the "I quit in 1992" jibe. This is an actor who you could argue had barely attained relevancy in twenty years, and here it really works for him, pushing character Riggan to the actual brink of insanity.

You can also believe that after the whole Incredible Hulk debacle that Edward Norton really is that kind of ridiculously anal arsehole to work with.

With its ingenious one shot camera trickery, no doubt you will feel a touch confused and perhaps even struggle to match the rather frantic pace of Birdman. And I think that while really enjoying it, I don't quite love it yet. Currently it just feels like it thinks it is far more clever than it really is.