Film Review - Birdman (2015)

Birdman stars Michael Keaton as Actor Riggan Thompson who once played the iconic superhero Birdman but gave it all away and now is trying to open a play on Broadway, a play that could make or break his career.

I liked Birdman I will say and I especially like how the film resembles a filmed Broadway show and director Alejandro Inarritu as well as his cinematographer Emmanuelle Lubezki and his Editors Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione do a terrific job at making the whole thing feel like one seamless take and one big stage experience like on a Broadway show, it's pretty impressive to watch.

I also thought the performances overall were pretty good, Keaton pretty much plays himself here given that he chose to walk away from Batman Forever after meeting with Joel Schumacher and not liking the lighter tone he had in mind for the character (his decision would be vindicated when Batman and Robin crashed and burned in 1997) but he is very good here though Naomi Watts, Emma Stone, Andrea Riseborough and Amy Ryan are all wonderful Stone in particular is really good and has a wonderful screen presence and it's nice to see her performance rewarded with an Oscar nod.

I do have to say however that I don't think this packs the punch in regards to satirising Hollywood that I got from 1992's The Player directed by Robert Altman which I thought really took aim at the culture in Hollywood as well as being an amusing film in its own right and like Keaton with this role you could see Altman taking aim at the culture that forced him into exile after Popeye crashed and burned in 1980 but here it all feels very much on the sidelines whereas I wish it was more central to the story.

But given that minor flaw as a passionate movie person I did like Birdman but that would be the only crowd I would only recommend the film too, 3 out of 5.