Not Hitchcock's finest hour

Rating: 4/10 (12 December 2006)

With so many Alfred Hitchcock classics to choose from The Birds is one of the great master's films you can safely skip. There's nothing in this film to really grab you. There are some nice bits sprinkled throughout but it never really all adds up to much of anything. In the end, it's a frustrating and, almost unbelievably coming from Hitchcock, a downright dull film.
The plot, such at it is, in this film centers on a series of unexplained bird attacks in a seemingly ordinary California town. There's a little romantic intrigue, or at least there's meant to be, but that angle doesn't add much to the proceedings. Basically the movie is a lot of talk, very little action. And when the "action" arrives it ultimately disappoints. To the modern eye, the special effects used in The Birds appear outrageously amateurish. Many of the bird attack sequences, meant to be fearsomely frightening, instead come off as being rather silly, almost comical. Certainly not the effect Hitchcock was looking for. Meant to shock and terrorize, The Birds does no such thing. The whole enterprise falls flat.
There are some decent moments here and there and the cast does the best they can with what little they have to work with. So much of the dialogue seems forced and unnatural. And boy is there ever a lot of dialogue as we sit around and wait for those infernal birds to show up. In the key role of young socialite Melanie Daniels, who sets what little plot there is in motion, Tippi Hedren gives a pretty good performance. Perhaps not up to the standards of some previous Hitchcock blondes (Grace Kelly anyone?) but OK. Playing off Hedren, Rod Taylor gives a somewhat wooden performance as the object of her desire but that probably has more to do with the failings of the script than his own abilities. The rest of the cast does the best they can trying to convince us we should be terrified but it just doesn't work. In the end, when it finally appears the film might be building towards something, there is only disappointment. The Birds is a film which ultimately is going nowhere. And it takes its sweet time getting there. Hitchcock certainly had his share of triumphs. This is not one of them.