Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2012

Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson play a trio of obsessive birders engaged in a competition to spot the most species in North America in one year. Filmmaker David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me) is to be commended. It’s hard to make three gifted comedians so dull, even in a charm-free, relentlessly test-marketed, inflated sitcom like this. And the premise: competitive BIRDwatching. I got chills. (This is a fictionalized adaptation of a non-fiction book.) Some nice scenery. I didn’t laugh, or even learn anything about birds. What’s next, David, a coin collectors’ actioner?