Bird-watching comedy 'The Big Year' never takes flight

There are two possible reasons why a film like the bird-watching comedy "The Big Year" isn't shown to critics in advance.


One is that the film isn't very good. Another is that the film seems so deeply confused in tone that studio marketers have no idea how to sell the movie to the public.

The latter would seem to be the case for this odd duck. Advance trailers made it look like a tightly edited comedy riot with Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson yukking it up. Rather, these comedic actors all play rather somber fellows, all living with regrets while chasing egrets and owls.

Watching "The Big Year" reveals that moments having nothing to do with one another in the movie were cobbled together to make the trailers in an attempt to pass the picture off as funny. It doesn't work.

It's difficult to determine whether director David Frankel ("The Devil Wears Prada") was attempting to make a straight comedy out of screenwriter Howard Franklin's adaptation of Mark Obmascik's book, which is more thoughtful than wacky. It's a bad fit.

Listening to Franklin's words led me to believe that he was shooting for a kind of heartfelt humor with light drama, like Martin's "Parenthood," which seems better every year as filmmakers try to duplicate its formula and find it nearly impossible to pull off.

"The Big Year" is perhaps most remarkable in the way that it forces its three lead actors to act uncomfortably against type as they chase after a "Big Year," which is a competition among birders to either see or hear the largest number of bird species within a single calendar year.

Martin looks the most comfortable of the three as Stu, a titan of business who's desperate to retire so he can travel cross-country to chase birds and spend more time with his wife, children and grandchildren. The character is so torn that Martin spends most of the movie looking like he has a stomachache, and it makes him look old. That's sad, not funny.

Black's penchant for creating characters out of controlled zaniness is severely undercut. His Brad is a 36-year-old guy who's never accomplished anything of note, so he spends the movie trying to achieve his way out of his funk by setting a new birding record. Black hasn't looked this lost since trying out rom-coms with "The Holiday."

Wilson attempts to use his usual California cockiness to infuse some life into Kenny, the defending "Big Year" champion determined to retain his title. But this boorish oaf is such an emotionally empty dork who neglects his wife that we can't embrace his unlikable, narrowly drawn competitor.

I didn't connect with any of the characters enough to connect them with any of the film's themes. We see a variety of birds, but only for about one second each, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend the picture to members of the Audubon Society or any other animal lovers.

"The Big Year" looks like it should be a hoot when considering the extensive cast beyond the three principals. But the three supporting females (Rosamund Pike, Rashida Jones and Jobeth Williams) have thankless roles that are performed largely by telephone as the men gallivant to bogs and Alaskan outposts for bird sightings. Anybody could have phoned in these parts.

The picture is packed with cameo performances (Tulsa's Tim Blake Nelson is joined by Anjelica Huston, Jim Parsons, Joel McHale, Kevin Pollak, Anthony Anderson, Steven Weber, Corbin Bernsen, I could go on). This is apparently an attempt to spread the lack of humor, and direction, around.

"The Big Year" never seems to take flight. It never really explains the phenomenon of birding very well. I kept expecting to see more flapping than flopping.