One of the biggest disappointments I've ever had with movies

Rating: 3/10 (17 February 2015)

I saw the trailer and I liked it, I read reviews replete with accolades, I noticed that the movie was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories. So I thought that I couldn't go wrong with this one. But what I got was an irritatingly wordy play-in-a-movie that confuses humor with hysteric outbreaks. Of the latter you'll find more than enough in this flick. OK, there were scenes that provided some enjoyment such as when the Michael Keaton character is running naked on Broadway and then has to improvise his way back into the play. Or the shrewd dialog between him and the critic. But these witty and lighthearted scenes are rarely to be found in a movie that otherwise lacks orientation and a satisfying denouement. "Birdman" starts out with a lot of dialogs and then many more dialogs follow. This is getting aggravating as one hardly cares about the characters who are altogether selfish, hysterical, flippant and pathologically unstable. One can usually count on an actor like Edward Norton to elevate an otherwise boring movie but here he doesn't really fit in and ultimately cannot even out the deficient screenplay. One major flaw is to be found in the fact that this movie should have centered entirely on Michael Keaton's character but instead it is weakened by subplots and other uninteresting characters. The most disappointing aspect is that the viewer is made to sit through endless dialogs conducted by aggravatingly high-strung actors and in the end, he is not even redeemed by a great finale. I found myself thinking all the time: "Well, there has to be a reason why this movie is so high on IMDb ratings, thus the ending has to account for this." In fact, it simply does not happen. The ending is pretentious, dishonest - a cheap trick. Thus: save your time and money and do not watch this pointless artsy piece of crap.