Somewhere out there exists a fragment of a sub-society of folks who take bird watching very seriously. Serious in the way Michael Jordan sorta dabbled in basketball. It's probably roughly the same amount of people who partake in competitive hot air balloon chasing(it exists, seriously), and "birding" as it's technically called, even has it's own celebrities. That means there must also be birding groupies out there somewhere. They know who they are. Seeing as how bird watching is such an obscure hobby, The Big Year has a shot to open it up to a whole new audience. Similar to the way Warrior could've brought new fans to the world of MMA if it didn't flop major. There's just one problem: the birds are more interesting than the men who obsessively pursue them.
With three comedic heavyweights like Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and usually reliable Steve Martin, The Big Year should have no shortage of laughs. So you'd think. They play three very different men all with the same common goal: to gaze upon more species of birds than anybody on the planet over the period of a year. This is called pursuing a "big year", and apparently it's all the rage. Brad(Black) is an office schlub with a dead end job and no life whatsoever after his divorce. Stu(Martin), a CEO of powerful(but riddled with inept middle management) corporation who has grown tired of the rat race, and is ready to settle down and gaze at the feathered creatures. And then there's Kenny(Wilson), the undisputed birding champion and holder of the record for eyeballing 732 species in his last big year. A selfish, arrogant, but mostly honest guy, Kenny's entire paranoid life revolves around holding onto that record. Not a healthy attitude to have considering his wife(Rosamund Pike) is trying to have a baby. Leaving home for an entire year to look at birds sounds like an effective way to lose everything else that should matter.
What follows is ostensibly a globe trotting adventure, with Stu and Brad lagging behind Kenny as he uses every trick in the book to stay ahead of his rivals. The journey will take them from coast to coast and to remote areas of Antarctica, but this never for a second feels like much of an epic experience. Stu and Brad become good friends in the process, sharing their love of birds, and yet they're rarely seen actually enjoying any part of it. It's all just competition, and since there are no stakes involved, what's the point?
Based on the book by Mark Obmascik and directed by David Frankel(The Devil Wears Prada), The Big Year could be considered the Fever Pitch for the bird watching community. It's all about how much men are willing to give up for their life's passions, and how these three in particular desperately want to prove their lives have merit. It's a worthy message, but we're never given any reason to care about any of these people. We don't know why they love bird watching so much. Their various personal and familial problems are merely a diversion. What's worse, there's very little to laugh at here, with the exception of the occasional zinger from Angelia Huston as the captain of a bird watching ship.
The Big Year isn't a terrible film. It just doesn't do anything particularly well, and will evaporate from memory the moment the credits roll. How do you make a movie with Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson so flat and dull? Very easily. Save your money, The Big Year is strictly for the birds.
