There was an odd time in the late 1980’s where Michael Keaton was the biggest star in Hollywood. Since hanging up the Bat-suit in the early 1990’s, he has continued to have a successful career, yet will never reclaim that success he once had. In Birdman, the first foray into comedy from Amores Perros director Alejandro González Iñárritu, Keaton plays an actor whose life is overshadowed by the fact he once was a megastar due to playing a superhero decades earlier (sound familiar?).

He’s now trying to reclaim his reputation as a serious actor on Broadway, which everybody (from a snooty actor played by Edward Norton, to his daughter played by Emma Stone) tries their hardest to undermine. Here’s the international trailer:

Based on the trailer, the film looks a surefire winner. I haven’t been a fan of the films Iñárritu has made since his debut, with each one trying to be more depressing than the last. A move away from dour dramas with three hour running times is the best thing he could do, even if some of the comedy moments prove that English isn’t his first language (“This place is horrible – it smells like balls” was probably not the best scene to open the trailer with). Michael Keaton is perfectly cast, and if the movie isn’t as weird as it looks, it’s bound to secure him that long-gestating Oscar nomination.

It’s very hard to find a comparison point for the movie; the mixture of fantasy and reality instantly brings to mind Ben Stiller‘s Secret Life of Walter Mitty remake from last year, albeit with far more ambition. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who won an Oscar for Gravity last year, has tried to make the movie look like it was filmed in one continuous take – a level of stupendous technical ambition (the film appears to segue between fantasy and reality without any notice) that ensures I will have to watch this on the biggest screen possible.

I’m worried about the comedy falling flat, but I have no doubt in my mind that this will be the best executed technical exercise of the year, and is a surefire winner of those Oscar categories, even before anybody has seen the film itself.

Birdman will have its world premiere as the opening film for this year’s Venice Film Festival on August 27, 2014. It will be released in the US on October 17, but us folks here in the UK will have to wait until January 2nd to see if it lives up to expectations. All other release dates are here, and considering they all currently fall in January, it would be a safe bet that this will be an Oscar hit. This doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s going to take so long to be released internationally though – come on Fox Searchlight; hurry up and release it over here.

Do you think Birdman could trigger a Michael Keaton comeback? And does it look too weird to be a major Oscar contender?

(top image source: Fox Searchlight Pictures)