‘I Am Not Big Bird’ Netflix Movie Review - Victor Villanueva’s Comedy is Okayish

Victor Villanueva's I Am Not Big Bird gets most of its charge from Lilit Reyes and Joma Labayen's writing. The smutty jokes make sure you are almost always giggling, and their powers, more often than not, underline the faults in Villanueva's skills. As a director, Villanueva is just serviceable. He is unable to sustain the lewd tone of the film, so the humor is not always stable. Despite dipping his hands in the realm of sexual matters, Villanueva fails to make the material raunchy. He delivers laughs without giving them a sensual coating. The scene where Luis (Enrique Gil) is seduced by his boss, Tanya (Donna Cariaga), is just slightly amusing and not hilariously, sultrily explosive. The sexual imagery looks tame, even when it's explicit. Consider the scene where the pleasures/pains of Luis and his friends, July (Red Ollero) and Macky (Nikko Natividad), are depicted through suggestive sounds and cartoon illustrations. You are asked to imagine the actual act - a conceit that sounds promising in theory. Still, your mind remains limited to the visuals on the screen. Your imagination isn't allowed to run wild.

Luis, July, and Macky are not very interesting. They are merely provided with one funny quality each: July shouts "Penis" in Bangkok to find other Filipinos around him, while Macky is metrosexual and gay, and he is the dullest character in the film. What about Luis? Well, he has a small penis. Furthermore, he looks exactly like a porn star named Big Bird (Gil), who has a big penis. You immediately start referring to Luis as Small Bird in your mind, and yes, the character, too, refers to himself with this S-word at one point. Since Big Bird is no longer active (he is hiding somewhere), people think Luis is Big Bird and either slap him for setting unreal expectations or chase him for reasons ranging from resuming a shoot to cutting off his dick.

The three friends are not very appealing. Gil, Ollero, and Natividad do whatever they can with the thin role. Unfortunately, their madness doesn't bounce off each other. They come across as little more than props used to deliver jokes to the audience. When their relationship becomes discordant temporarily, the movie turns you off by hitting you with weepy emotions. But the weepy emotions are canceled out by the sight of dicks, which fail to make the moment funny (they reek of desperation). As a result, the scene feels neither emotional nor amusing. Thankfully, the supporting characters have enough exciting colors in them, and they make the movie entertaining. Ghanda Suriyamanee, named Banana Lady on IMDb, cracks you up with her dirty move involving firing bananas from her sex organ. Nonthakorn Chalermnai gets a memorable moment where she drops a smoke bomb that fails to conceal her as she "disappears" from Luis's sight. As Luis's unsatisfied girlfriend Cathy, Ashley Rivera cranks up the bawdy meter by screaming, "Use me!"

Deborah (Wipawee Charoenpura), a porn producer, oozes deliciously cunning vibes but is not given much meat to chew on. The movie makes a mistake by reducing her to a sentimental lover, as she looks much better as a figure of authority - an intimidating woman whose stares can bend steel. Her men, too, are not infused with enough madness. One of them records a blackmail video in a language unfamiliar to Luis. Yet, Deborah's men don't add wonderful comic shades to the film with their buffoonery. They all disappear into the crowd and look indistinct. Some scenes, like the one where Deborah finds out that Luis is not Big Bird, go on and on without any rhythm. They come across as background noise. There is one joke, though, that's delivered in a low-key way but nonetheless manages to be the highlight of this film. A frustrated Luis narrates his troubles to Big Bird in hopes of getting assistance from him. "Say no more," Big Bird utters in front of Luis. Luis: "Will you help me?" Big Bird: "No."

Final Score- [6/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times