‘The Big Year’ is a Big Bust

There’s a clear-cut reason why so many mainstream releases from Hollywood are so forgettable. Filmmakers aiming for big box office returns are so intent on “moving the plot along” that they never pause long enough to truly engage the audience. If there’s no time to explore the personalities and psyches of the characters onscreen, then who cares what happens to them?

The Big Year plays like a promising film with all the interesting parts cut out. It’s a comedy about competitive bird watching, but good luck figuring that out from the deliberately ambiguous promos. The executives at Fox must’ve been so terrified about backing such an unusual premise that they decided to market it as if it were a Bucket List-type schmaltz-fest. Yet that description is sadly not that far from the truth.

Instead of mining this oddball material for inventive gags, screenwriter Howard Franklin (still best known for his work in Romancing The Stone) decides to tell a thoroughly bland tale about “following your dream” without ever bothering to investigate the obsessive passion that drives his three lead characters. It’s an adult comedy needlessly sanitized for a PG audience, complete with unnecessary narration that does little more than underline the obviousness of the predictable storyline.

Jack Black stars as a 36-year-old unemployed divorcé who lives with his parents and dreams of winning the Big Year competition. A professorial British voice (John Cleese) jarringly cuts into the action to explain that the Big Year is in fact an informal contest among birders to see who can spot the greatest number of bird species within a single calendar year. This laughably lazy method of establishing the plot is the first red flag indicating that Franklin’s approach will be entirely devoid of imagination or wit.

Aside from a few inexplicable bird factoids, there’s zero explanation of the skill needed to spot birds or the fascination that drives these childlike adults. They’re such boorish characters that one could easily imagine their hobby being replaced with anything else under the sun. We’ve seen these archetypes countless times before: the workaholic with commitment issues (Owen Wilson), the aging businessman nearing retirement age (Steve Martin) and the overgrown man-child (Black, who else?). To make matters worse, the close-ups of the computer animated birds are only slightly more convincing than the effects in Birdemic.

Director David Frankel has had great past success with bringing hit novels to the screen (particularly The Devil Wears Prada), but he’s clearly got a big flop on his hands with this half-hearted adaptation of Mark Obmascik’s book. Each sequence conspires against any potential comedic spark flaring between the enormously overqualified cast. In one zany scene, Wilson makes Martin seasick by discussing fish heads. When Black asks Martin if he’s feeling OK, the man queasily replies, “It’s not easy being green.” I imagine the laugh track on ABC’s “Last Man Standing” appreciating that manufactured punch line quite a bit.

It’s depressing to see a comedian as multi-talented as Martin stuck with such a morose role. There’s one shot where he engages in a goofy victory dance with Black that hints at the fun this film could’ve had if it simply allowed its cast to riff and improvise on the spot. Instead, this dance is immediately interrupted by the killjoy plot, which must follow the formulaic law that requires every success to be followed by a setback. Though Frankel elicited some of Wilson’s best work to date in the sappy but sweet Marley & Me, he badly miscasts the deadpan comic this time around. As for Black, he appears hopelessly bored with repeatedly playing the same lovable doofus, and his devious grin looks painfully strained.

In fact, everyone in this A-list ensemble is criminally wasted: Anjelica Huston, Dianne Wiest, Rosamund Pike, Kevin Pollak, Joel McHale and Jim Parsons from “The Big Bang Theory.” I’m no fan of “The Big Bang Theory,” but even I hated seeing the gifted Emmy darling with his avian features and razor-sharp timing reduced to a wordless walk-on. Yet I suppose the less screen time one has in this turkey, the better. 

The Big Year opened Oct. 14 at the AMC Showplace Village Crossing 18 and Regal Gardens 7-13 in Skokie. It opened at number 9 behind Real Steel, Footloose, The Thing, The Ides of March, Dolphin Tale, Moneyball, 50/50 and Courageous, earning $3.3 million according to Box Office Mojo. It is rated PG.

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