It relies on the technical aspect, but ignores the substance and this creates a pretentious film with no drama to deliver

Rating: 1/10 (7 February 2016)

The director is a genius. The cast is fantastic. The filmmaking seems brilliant. However, the result? When I heard that Inarritu would make a comedy, in fact black comedy, I approached this idea with suspicion, but later after the posters, trailers and the story revealed, I was excited enough to see and appreciate the film. Birdman is a typical example of "style over substance" word by word. The one shot nature of the work makes the film worthy and technically brilliant, also it is an important event for the history of cinema, but there was no emotion among those very talky characters. This is a very talky movie. People talk, talk and talk, so there is no time to think about, there is no time for "art". This is a different type of art house movie. The idea of a disgraced actor played by great Michael Keaton ironically who has an alter ego Birdman (need to say Batman?) sounds very interesting and emotional, but the film ignores all and just deals with technical wizardry. Michael Keaton is great, but there is not any single character who you can develop empathy or sympathy in this movie. They just talk! This is that kind of a film that all those great actors or actresses come together in a movie, but the film is not as glorious as the dreamy cast. I am sorry, but I think the upcoming movie "Hail Caesar!" will be much like the same. Emma Stone was remarkable, Naomi Watts does her parts, Amy Ryan is the same, but Edward Norton was just there... One of the greatest actors of all time! He was like a ghost. Again nothing to deliver. The fall and ruined life of our main character could have been delivered in a different way, a more powerful, devastating way like Mickey Rourke's The Wrestler. However, what we have is a very pretentious artsy film. Of course, there are some very interesting or funny moments in the film, but other than this, it feels like an empty style over substance film. Style for style. The criticism of mainstream cinema, entertainment industry or fame works pretty well, but it remains an idea rather than a story in the film. I prefer Robert Altman's masterpiece The Player over this film. I appreciate that Inarritu takes risk and tries different type of films, but the result is not spectacular. You cannot enter the movie, it just spits you out. Some people call Birdman as quintessential cinema, but if you ask me it is rather "anti-cinema". I appreciate the movie for what it is, I can appreciate its technical aspect and the making of the film, but I didn't enjoy the movie a bit, because the movie was not natural, it was far fetched thanks to its pseudo intellectual manner. The story includes a tragedy, but the movie just cannot deliver it to us. If you like Fellini's Otto e Mezzo, you will love this film.