Absolutely dreadful

Rating: 1/10 (8 May 2015)

Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, a washed-up actor who was a big name about 20 years ago as The Birdman. Thomson has now decided to turn his hand to directing and is attempting to complete his Broadway play production. However, this proves to be less than straight-forward when he faces budgeting problems, a difficult actor, a scathing critic and an inner voice that may turn Thomson's life upside down.
I'll kick this review off by saying that I thought Michael Keaton was fantastic here and did everything in his power to give his character as much life and depth as possible. Err that's the only positive that I have for this film....
I think with better writing this could have been a truly great film, but what really hurts it is its total failure to explore its central character. I never really felt anything for Thomson, not pity, not hatred. He basically just yelled at people, scrapped with people, did stupid things and then had his 'inner voice' talking to him. When the film ended I thought to myself 'What did I actually learn about Thomson?' The answer of which was 'Nothing'
The last paragraph was perhaps a little too philosophical so let's look at more obvious problems; the film was chocked full of unlikeable, sleazy and sordid characters. The plot was so thin that it was practically invisible and worst of all it was so boring. At about 80 minutes in I was losing the will to live and was just praying for the end. I think the reason that I was so bored was that there was no real story, no real point to any of it, and no-one to give a damn about.
The potential was definitely there and I fully appreciate that the point of this film was to explore a man that could never really let go of the past, but it just isn't handled very well here.
FINAL NOTE; it seems that shooting one's own nose off is the answer to being popular and getting noticed. Brilliant!!