Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black in "The Big Year"; photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

 “The Big Year” (20th Century Fox)

Of all the misguided ideas Hollywood has had, this has to be one of the worst. They assembled a stellar cast which includes Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, JoBeth Williams, Rosamunde Pike, Brian Dennehy, Dianne Wiest, Angelica Huston and Rashida Jones and put them in a movie titled “The Big Year” and it is about “bird watching.” What kind of looney idea is that?

“The Big Year” concerns “birders” who compete to see how many different types of species of birds they can see in the span of one year. Kenny Bostick (Wilson) is the champion but Stu Priessler (Martin) and Brad Harris (Black) decide to make a run for the title. And that is basically the movie. These guys go from place to place trying to spot birds. How much fun is that for an audience!

There are side stories involving Bostick’s wife’s (Pike) feelings of abandonment. We also see Harris develop a crush on a fellow birder named Ellie (Jones). Then there is Stu’s relationship with his wife (Williams) and with the company from which he is retired. None of these side stories really catch hold and it all comes back to the birding issue.

There are some comic moments. You can’t have these three leads in a movie without getting something funny happening, but the comic moments are few and far between. The times in between are just painfully ordinary.

The movie is rated PG for mild profanity.

There is a lot of talent on the screen in “The Big Year” but they can’t do anything with a script that is so ordinary. They should have known better once they read the script but they didn’t. Now they are each saddled with a big flop called “The Big Year” on their resume’s.

I scored “The Big Year” a very small 4 out of 10.