Should've Clipped This Bird's Wings

"The Big Year"

Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson are all actors of comedy.  All three of them perform very different styles of comedy and have made us laugh over the years.  As you may have guessed, The Big Year is a comedy starring this trio of funny men.  Or at least that is how this film was marketed.  There's one tiny problem though, there's nothing funny about it!  Instead, we are left to sit through 100 minutes of unamusing agony.

Based on the nonfiction book of the same name, The Big Year follows three avid bird watchers, Brad (Black,) Kenny (Wilson,) and Stu (Martin) as they each try to have their own big year.  A big year is a competition where bird watchers compete to see who can see the most species of their fine feathered friends in a single year.  Kenny, several years ago had set the world record with 732.  He decides that it is time once again for another big year.  Brad and Stu are Kenny's competitors and they too are going to try to break the previous world record.

Aren't you just hooked on the plot?  That's my biggest issue with The Big Year.  Could there be a more boring topic to make a movie about?  Yes, I understand that there are many people who enjoy bird watching as a hobby and I respect that.  However, that does not mean that a film should be made on the subject matter.  The screenplay really does try to make such a dull, unexciting subject into a fast paced, enthralling piece of entertainment.  Unfortunately the film treats us like a bunch of chicks that just hatched from our eggs.  Character development is spoon fed to us through uninspired dialogue that feels as though it was written by a student straight out of film school.

There's nothing creative about how the story or the characters are presented to us.  All the scenes seem sort of thrown together just so we have an overly clear idea of what is going on.  Oh, and just to reiterate what I've already written, The Big Year is about three guys who are trying to break the world record for most species of birds seen in one year.  The film loves to remind us of that plot point over and over again.

When writing a script, the screenwriter's job is to communicate thoughts, feelings, and ideas through a character's actions and dialogue.  There should also be room for interpretation from how the director and actors feel about each of the characters.  They in turn can bring their own ideas of how something should be seen on screen that perhaps had not originally crossed the screenwriter's mind.  The Big Year does not allow for any of that.  The performances from Black, Martin, and Wilson are so ordinarily written and atypical of what we've seen so many times before that there is no room for improvisation; you can't help but feel sorry for them.  All three of their talents are wasted.  And there's a whole host of actors that I'm not even mentioning that showed up probably only for a paycheck.

Full of tireless clichés from start to finish, The Big Year is a big waste of time.  For those expecting classic performances from their favorite comedians, they are in for a big letdown.  The Big Year is a poorly put together film that should have been left on the shelf only to serve the purpose of collecting dust.  Never do the characters achieve flight from their nest.  Let me tell you, this nest is made from empty, meaningless, pointless pieces of grass, leaves, and twigs.  Save for some beautiful scenery, this film truly is one only for the birds.