Michael Keaton
Review: Birdman
or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)
The Pitch: What We Talk About When We Talk About Films With Dominating Technical Conceits Released In The Middle Of Awards Season.
The Review: Alejandro González Iñárritu was the first Mexican director to be nominated for an Oscar, but his back catalogue of films have a more serious reputation than those of his contemporaries Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo Del Toro, the latter winning over the geek crowd with his highly detailed fantasies and the former becoming increasingly renowned for his long single takes in films such as Children Of Men and last year’s Gravity which saw an opening of seventeen minutes and you wonder if this left Iñárritu challenged to determine if it would be possible to construct an entire film in such a manner with modern technical wizardry just as applicable to the grounded, real world as it is to space, perhaps even more so if you restrict the movements of your characters to a single location, in this case a theatre where Michael Keaton’s tortured former superhero actor Riggan Thompson, star of the now defunct Birdman trilogy, is attempting an act of self-redemption with the production of a Broadway play in which his direction and acting are becoming unbalanced by his alter ego whispering provocatively in his ear even while his producer and lawyer friend (Zack Galifianakis) does his best to keep the sinking ship afloat, his daughter (Emma Stone) attempts to be an assistant while sorting out her own addiction issues and the last minute replacement (Edward Norton) brings a Method madness which complicates his role and threatens to derail the production before it gets to opening night after a series of previews which we see unfolding over the course of several days, possibly even weeks, as we and the characters roam the inner hallways, the stage, the roof and occasionally the streets of the theatre while the script by a team of writers including Iñárritu attempts to understand the conflict between acting and the nature of celebrity and how much one can be compromised by the other but the arguments feel dated and the pot-shots at the real life actors name checked in the early scenes feel cheap and unearned, Riggan’s silent partner of the gravelly Batman voice and seeming telekinetic ability proving further distractions and potentially exploring interesting ideas but like a hyperactive child attempting maths problems it never sits still for long enough to allow you to consider the solution, the tangents to the subplots involving Norton’s rooftop conversations with Stone and scenes with Riggan’s performer girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough) and his leading lady (Naomi Watts) offering some of the best character moments but sucking the momentum from the overall narrative which has the surface feeling of a stage play but in both its internal conceit and the overall effect lacks the natural vocabulary of either stage play or film, the first forty minutes in particular being a succession of scenes which are staged without any variation in tone or pitch and which become plagued by the fourth wall breaking jazz drum score from Antonio Sanchez which initially drives tension but increasingly becomes an irritant as the whole language of film is gradually dispensed with in a way that many have regarded as a supreme technical achievement – and it is – but never manages to rise above being anything more than that, and if by now you’re thinking that my attempt to write this entire review in a single sentence is even more of a a cheap trick than the one I’m calling attention to, then that’s exactly my point: as the play unfolds over two hours without the normal breaths and pauses that standard filming or cutting provides it became for me as punishing to watch as I presume reading this review has become for you and for that I genuinely apologise, if you haven’t given up already but then you wouldn’t been reading this part anyway so ignore me, and anyway you get the benefit of punctuation and the best the film can do to shake things up is a disappointingly brief but vibrant scene where Birdman is brought thrillingly to life, because the narcissistic fabrication that Iñárritu has fashioned so exhausted me with its constant demands to observe every element of the foreground and background and its inability to resolve any of its subplots to any degree of satisfaction that its only joy comes from within the moment, rather than by being able to appreciate the film as a complete work and maybe this another one of those cases like Magic Eye paintings where everyone who can do them thinks they’re brilliant but people like me who see differently find it commendable that so many others enjoy it but personally can’t help but be incredibly frustrated by the whole experience, and while many of those isolated moments are enjoyable, often filmed in long, technically demanding takes which undersell the efforts the actors would have invested in them, the end never justifies the means and the final irony being that half of the best moments are in the trailer but they’re actually more gratifying when taken out of context than assembled into an overwhelming stream of consciousness that hopefully means that now we’ve seen this once, in service of a story that’s less successful at skewering celebrity culture and acting than TV series such as The Larry Sanders Show were twenty years ago and one which also strives for magical realism but ends up confounding itself like a magic trick without a prestige, Iñárritu might stop attempting to one-up his fellow Mexicans and learn how to subvert standard narrative conventions as effectively as he did in his early films rather that in this award-baiting torture that is rightly earning plaudits for a Keaton renaissance and for strong work from the rest of the cast but which sadly doesn’t merit the remainder of the praise being heaped upon it.
Why see it at the cinema? If you want to play Spot The Joins, then you stand the best chance of doing that in the cinema. And good luck to you. Since pretty much every aspect of the production is ramped up to 11, you may as well do that with your viewing experience as well.
What about the rating? Rated 15 for strong language, sex references. If it’s come to the point where fourteen year olds can’t be allowed to hear two grown adults laying in bed and talking about having sex, which is what the BBFC extended classification info would seem to suggest, then maybe we should all give up and go home.
My cinema experience: The first of what I expect to be dozens of uses of my Cineworld Unlimited card, on this occasion at their Cambridge branch. Just a shame that I’d already paid to see it a week earlier at the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton before a clogged up motorway and a broken down train on the Central Line scuppered my plans.
The Score: 6/10
Review: The Other Guys
The Pitch: Dragnet 2: Curse Of The Man-Child.
The Review: Another year, another Will Ferrell comedy. The best of these have been his collaborations with director Adam McKay, although I say that with reservations. Anchorman remains, in this reviewer’s opinion at least, one of the most consistent and funniest comedies of the Noughties, Talladega Nights was great, but Step Brothers was resolutely average, and most of Ferrell’s other comedies in the last few years have been patchy at best. Part of the problem here is over-exposure; Ferrell used up most of his supply of funny man-child shouting idiocy in Anchorman, and ever since the subtle variations on the character have worn increasingly thin.
Much of the enjoyment has come from the supporting characters in these movies, and The Other Guys certainly doesn’t skimp on the other talent. Sharing top billing this time is Mark Wahlberg, who doesn’t have much of a track record as far as comedy is concerned (as long as you exclude the unintentional hilarity of The Happening), but in the same way as John C. Reilly in Talladega Nights, his interplay with Ferrell is one of the highlights and the two form an uneasy partnership that allows both to have moments to shine. Samuel L. Jackson and Duane Johnson are an all too brief highlight at the beginning, and Michael Keaton reminds us why he was so great in the comedies of yesteryear, but on this occasion too few others make an impression.
In terms of the plot itself, there is a curious mix of the slightly serious (Steve Coogan plays a Bernie Madoff-style character almost straight) and the outlandishly humourous (the movie is littered with sub-plots, such as the use of Ferrell’s character’s Prius as a hang-out spot for homeless guys), and takes an awfully long time to feel as if it’s heading anywhere interesting. Not a problem for previous Ferrell / Mckay movies, but there’s more plot attempted here and McKay suggests attempts at more narrative thrust than in previous efforts but somehow allows things to meander a little too much.
The big question, of course, is “Is it funny?”, and the answer is, “To a point.” Wahlberg is great, especially in his reactions to Ferrell’s unlikely wife (Eva Mendes), Ferrell is a little more dialled-down than in his last couple which kind of works, there’s a few cracking set pieces and the way in which our heroes slowly rise to prominence does generate laughs along the way, but there’s few standout moments that are the equivalent of the earlier efforts by Ferrell and McKay, and some of the jokes (Keaton’s inexplicable TLC references) are stretched rather too thin, having not been that funny in the first place. In an odd way, it almost works better as a Lethal Weapon 3-style buddy action comedy, with the emphasis on the action rather than the comedy, but there a feeling of missed opportunity here. Shame.
Why see it at the cinema: McKay actually does at least a comparable job of shooting action as most of this year’s major action movies, so those scenes alone deserve a big screen viewing, and there are a few big belly laughs to share. If you like your statistics, then the end credits will also be worth seeing, as The Other Guys turns into a bizarrely serious Michael Moore film once the names start to roll.
The Score: 6/10
The Movie Evangelist 