The trailer for Birdman imagines crazy world where Michael Keaton once played a superhero

Alejandro González Iñárritu, the Mexican director behind such nonlinear downers as 21 Grams and Babel, would be few people’s first choice to direct a winking showbiz satire. Michael Keaton, on the other hand, would be everybody’s first choice to play an aging actor best known for starring as an iconic, winged superhero. So let’s all give Birdman a chance, okay? The new trailer, scored to a moody slow-jam version of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” makes the film look more operatic than hilarious. But maybe that’s just because whoever cut it focused less on the plot and more on the typically stunning imagery from Emmanuel Lubezki, including the Goodfellas-like steadicam shot that opens the clip, and scenes from the comic-book movie within the movie. So long as Iñárritu can resist shuffling the scene order like a deck of cards, Birdman could be his most interesting film since Amores Perros. And by the way, Keaton punching Ed Norton in the jaw is pretty funny.