Birdman: plenty to see, little to feel

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, which stars Michael Keaton as a one-time superhero movie star (just like Keaton himself), is audacious technically, and so meta it may well blow your mind, but it is also weird, maddening, wearing and exhausting. It is so frantically fast-paced it feels as if you are on a theme-park ride that just won’t stop, or slow down, if only for a minute, so you can take a breather, collect yourself, come up for air. It is already a critical smash. It has garnered seven Golden Globe nominations. It is widely tipped for the Oscars. It has received five-star reviews everywhere. But the one thing you should know about critics, who see several films a week, including Horrible Bosses 2, is that anything that comes from left-field is thrilling simply by virtue of coming from left-field and not being Horrible Bosses 2. Was that worth saying? Yes? No? Said now, either way.