Review: "BirdMan" is dark feathered acting held aloft

Bird Man R
Bird Man is the story of a down and out Broadway actor and producer who once was a comic book superhero, played by Michael Keaton, who played Batman. When his play about love is in rehearsals, his lead is injured by a stage light and has to be replaced by a method actor friend played by Edward Norton.The main character though is also in the play, and has a druggie daughter, played by Emma Stone, who allegedly went to rehab. Also his ex wife, played by Niomi Watts, is in it. Then there is a hard drama critic who wants the pleasure of destroying his story before it goes live.

Riggin, the former Bird Man, has hallucinations where he thinks he can use telekinesis to hurl objects, hears his alter ego in his head and sees him as an actual bird man, and is berated by the alter ego for being a loser. It appears his stage manager doesn't see the hallucinations but it is not clear if his daughter, Sam, also has them, as she might.

Norton plays Mike, the actor asked to replace the one who meets with an accident. Riggin blatantly tells his producer that he caused the accident, but he brushes this off as another of his quirky insane hallucinations.

The play within the play is about a lovelorn ex husband who wants revenge on his ex and her lover.

The story makes allusions to Shakepeare but as an homage not a plot device, referencing lines from his plays through other characters.

Riggin's ex in the real world is bitter, as is his daughter, and both do an Oscar worthy job.

Emma Stone deserves a nod for this movie as does Michael Keaton, but Edward Norton is playing himself.

The older female lead and the younger female lead have a romantic encounter, and later the male lead and the daughter shack up in the scaffolding above the set. The awkward love scene in the scaffolding only works because it's Norton and Stone. Anyone else and it likely would have seemed creepy.

This movie is not a black comedy. It is a drama with some jokes. The jokes are good and well placed, but the rest is so dark drama that it's a drama. It just happens to have some funny lines.

It is not for children. They would be bored or even scared of some scenes. It is rater R for a reason.

(Spoiler). The trailers pretty much explain what's in the movie and almost spoil it that he's hallucinating. Some critics needed it spelled out for them early on, but this movie's only real ambiguity is the idea whether or not Riggin has actually killed his career, or him self, at least three times in the movie.

Like Black Swan, a horror movie about dance theater and hallucinations, this tackles similar ideas and similar ending. This is a more fun movie though, with some light moments.

The parts where Bird Man is flying around the city and landing on things, while a creature attacks the city are clearly in his head.

It does makes one wonder if any of it is real, and he's not just living behind the thing out of a trash bin. 

At one point he is locked outside the stage door and has to go about in his underwear around the other side to the front. The crowd is amazed at seeing him and he becomes a sensation on Twitter. This is probably one of his moments though, as it's not likely in New York city anyone would eve notice it.

The director films the movie in a faux continuous take over three days.

Review by Adam Browne