Film Review: Birdman

Birdman. Rated MA 15+ (strong coarse language). 119 minutes. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Screenplay by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo.‬

Verdict: Batman meets Birdman.

Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is famous for playing superhero Birdman in a successful series of films. Desperate to inject his life and career with some artistic integrity, Thomson puts everything he has on the line to write, direct and star in a Broadway play. His Birdman alter ego, however, has other ideas about how easy it is going to be for him leave the much-loved character behind once and for all.

Deep within this hectic collision of style over content lies a fascinating premise. Hollywood stars have long envied their theatre-making colleagues (and vice versa), while famous celebrities appearing in plays can guarantee sold out seasons that run for months. So what are the differences between film and theatre for actors? And why does Thomson believe one ‘star turn’ to be more important than the other?

Birdman, instead, reads and plays like a bad soap opera, and Iñárritu (Babel, 21 Grams) and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s (Gravity) vision for the film to run as one long, single take simply becomes torturous. There is hardly a moment of stillness or silence, which only reveals a drama so riddled with clichés that it cannot possibly survive any kind of intelligent interrogation.

Keaton, who was obviously cast because he played Batman twice in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), has his moments, and the rest of the cast are obviously working incredibly hard to meet Iñárritu’s gruelling expectations.

But Birdman’s fatal flaw is the scene where the film turns into what is obviously a Birdman film, with spectacular special effects and swooping prehistoric creatures. His alter ego snarls that this is the film that the people want to see. In this case he is, rather unfortunately, absolutely right.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: RoboCop

RoboCop. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 117 minutes. Directed by José Padilha. Screenplay by Joshua Zetumer.

Verdict: A slick remake of an unforgettable classic.

Remakes (or the current ‘buzz word’ reboots), are continuing to sweep through Hollywood like a plague, with Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Endless Love and even little orphan Annie just a few of the titles lining up for release this year. The first remake off the rank is this slick entry into what will become a very crowded field.

If you haven’t seen Paul Verhoeven’s celebrated original, released in 1987, there’s much to engage with in this re-telling of the story of adoring father, husband and Detroit policeman Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman).

Fearing the police are closing in on their illegal weapons trade, Murphy is targeted by the gang who almost kill him by blowing up his car. When he regains consciousness, Murphy discovers that technology company OmniCorp, led by CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), has encased what remained of his body into a state-of-the-art robotic suit. Sellars needs to win the trust of the American people by humanising the company’s robot soldiers that are seen as ruthless killing machines, incapable of considering how dangerous situations might be resolved with less brutal efficiency.

As was the case in the original, the themes of greed and exploitation play out in an ethically challenged minefield – with the rules of engagement starkly illustrated in the film’s opening sequences set in a US-occupied Tehran. When OmniCorp’s drones kill an innocent Iranian boy during a live cross to Pat Novak’s (Samuel L. Jackson) television program, the political pressure on the corporation results in Dr Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) being given permission to go to whatever lengths are necessary to develop a more humanised version of the drones.

While it certainly suffers by comparison to the original, Padilha’s less boisterous version still wields a significant amount of clout, with the consequences of the story still as thought-provoking as they were back in 1987. And that just may be the point.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.