BIRDMAN OR [THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE]: A cinematic bliss! Extremely Heartwarming!![4.5/5]

A Critic from The Times is all geared up to knock down one’s first tryout at theatre-production with a bad bad review. She hasn’t even been to any of the previews yet. The actor-director gives her back a hard time for being impolite, uninformed and ruthless about one’s massive efforts behind it. And then, comes the concluding line of the heated conversation, “you aren’t an actor. You are a movie-star.” The man at the receiving end is a washed-up actor famed & framed in typecast for playing a superhero all his life and now, his next move is to make a thriving comeback with a Broadway adaptation of a seasoned short-story. The invited struggle was supposed to be for breaking one’s comfort zone and making him easily placed in mainstream but it turns out to be a clash of ego, self-centric image and mental baggage of past riding on head.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s BIRDMAN OR [THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE] is a smart, witty, sharp and awesomely entertaining journey of a faded superstar trying to search for a new identity in the changing times. Riggan [Michael Keaton] was the most popular in 90s. His movies where he would lock up himself in a bird suit to create Birdman- the superhero have been in the list of all time top-grossers but today, he’s hardly there. He holds no Facebook page. He doesn’t know how to handle a Twitter account. His last hope to survive the struggle to exist is the Broadway production he’s acting in and directing.

BIRDMAN OR [THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE] is filled with dark humor coming from left, right and center. Smartly written dialogues are performed with such ease and with barely any hint of pre-conceived realization that you need to be on your toes all the time to not miss any of the punches. Film is edited sharply and astutely in such manner that the whole film looks like a one continuous shot film. It amazes you with the kind of precision one could only imagine while writing, shooting, acting and editing such flawless film. Film has a certain mysterious outlook with added surreal elements of a fantasy flick and the grasping music by the celebrated drummer Antonio Sanchez perfectly adds complementing flavors to that.

As an overtly enthusiast and an actor craving for perfection in his performance till the levels of madness, Edward Norton gives us the most unpredictable yet reliably most entertaining character in the film. Beware! As to make it look more real, he has just tried to have real sex with his on-stage co-actor [Naomi Watts] in a full-house theatre. Emma Stone plays the rehabbed daughter to Riggan efficiently. Zach Galifianakis’ role of the play-producer is a controlled performance with its own share of giggling moments. Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan and Andrea Riseborough too mark their presence felt but the one who gives it all is unquestionably Michael Keaton. As an actor torn and tattered between his successful past and almost non-existing present, Keaton wears the pain and the pun both on his expressive muscles with a powerful performance. This is my pick at the Oscars for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.

With invariable mentions of Hollywood celebrities, cleverly witty remarks on them, settings of stage-rehearsals, inter-personal conflicts between actors sharing the same platform, inhibitions, insecurities, identity-crisis and the undying urge to be on the front page and not on the third, BIRDMAN OR [THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE] is a perfect Hollywood film, set in Hollywood and about Hollywood. DO NOT MISS IT as Inarritu gives his best shot, so does Keaton! A Masterstroke, extremely heartwarming!! [4.5/5]

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2: A regular popcorn fling! Nothing new to offer!! [2.5/5]

How can you not find it amusing when Spider-man himself starts humming his own signature tune in midst of his early face-off with some notorious criminals! In the very next, you get to notice that how miserable, messy and misunderstood a superhero’s normal life can be when at home. Interesting take but that’s that. If you’re seriously looking for something additional, something extra to the previous Garfield starrer movie, I have to break your hearts coldly. Marc Webb’s second in the series THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 has nothing new to offer and is a regular popcorn movie that trusts blindly on its own set of rules to entertain.

Taking story forward from where it ended in the first, the quest for his parent’s inexplicable disappearance still drives Peter Parker anxious and restless when he learns his childhood buddie Harry [Dane DeHaan] is now the new inheritor of OsCorp., after his father’s death. Meanwhile, Max [Jamie Foxx]-an almost invisible ordinary yet extremely susceptible loner and an electric engineer at OsCorp is the new accidental victim of its illegal human-animal mutation program. The ‘Electro’ is his new avatar with super-electric powers. Now, Harry has some hereditary illness that demands Spiderman’s blood as its venom and his only hope is Electro. Together, they are on to wreck-ruin & smash the New York City and the lives of its people, and Spider-man has to prove himself again, in hard times when his love life too is not very smooth.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 shows great promise in glimpse and pieces where a humorous, realistic and sympathetic touch to Spider-man’s regular day-to-day life is being portrayed but soon, it gets derailed or rather I would say takes a U-turn to its own guarded path to entertain, entertain and entertain…and that’s when the jinx of getting in routine hits. Even the drama here is so ‘seen-it-before & sensed-it-before’. Is the fear of losing his love while he’s on his ‘saving the world’ mission not a typical superhero setback?? Also, the rise of villain here is very much a forced practice without having much of a strong explanatory shield to it. Though the visual effects are at par, especially Spider-man’s final face-off with Electro and Harry-turned into-Green Goblin at the magically lit Times Square, it is the sparkling chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone that pulls off most of the scenes.

The 3D effects are worth taking the ride. Watching Spider-man shuffling and juggling in the center of New York City skyscrapers, that too in a rhythmic slow & fast motion technique, is more than just a visual treat. Before getting thinned and restricted by VFX extravaganza in later part, Jamie Foxx makes an incredible impact with his simpleton Max in the first. Emma can never get it wrong with her twinkling and ‘communicating in good volumes’ eyes. Dane DeHaan plays it well but his major will strike soon in the next as suggested at the end.

There should not be any expression of surprise if I say THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 belongs to Andrew Garfield. He’s witty. He’s charming. He’s expressive. And he shoulders the responsibility in a skilled manner. I wish the plot would have been more responsible with a new, fresh and innovative approach. The glimpse and suggestions are there in portions. Watchable! [2.5/5]