Entertainment

Beak shall inherit the earth

Credit the makers of “The Big Year’’ with trying something different — a comedy set in the world of competitive birding that’s neither a gross-out buddy movie nor a drippy chick flick.

Yet despite the efforts of an excellent cast headed by three top comedy names — Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black — and tons of beautiful scenery (mostly British Columbia and the Canadian Yukon), this movie stubbornly refuses to take flight, or generate more than a few chuckles.

Blame meandering direction by David Frankel (“The Devil Wears Prada’’ and a script (attributed to Howard Franklin, working from a nonfiction book) loaded with expository dialogue over-explaining everything that happens and everything that everyone is feeling.

This undermines the work of the stars, playing fictionalized versions of three driven men who have undertaken one of the world’s quirkiest competitions.

The Big Year, as it’s called, is won by the individual birder (they hate the term bird watcher) who records sightings of the largest number of different species in North America during a calendar year.

The reigning champ, played against type by the normally laid-back Wilson, is Kenny, an affluent New Jersey building contractor who has vowed to his third and latest wife (Rosamund Pike) that he won’t compete again after capturing the title with 732 species.

But that’s only until the obsessive Kenny senses a serious challenge from a couple of newcomers to the competition.

One is Stu (Martin), a wealthy industrialist who retires with the encouragement of his wife (JoBeth Williams) specifically to devote himself to a quest he’s dreamed of all his life.

At the other end of the economic spectrum is Brad (Black), a divorced software engineer at a Virginia nuclear power plant who maxes out his credit cards — and those of his supportive mother (Dianne Wiest) — much to the disgust of his father (Brian Dennehy).

Neither Stu nor Brad are even willing to admit they’re participating in The Big Year when they first meet on a boat skippered by Anjelica Huston.

But they gradually bond to compete against the ruthless Kenny, who goes to great lengths to mislead his competitors.

There is much racing across the continent — from New England to Texas to a remote spot in the Aleutian Islands — but not much insight into what drives this strange tribe, including a female birder (Rashida Jones) who takes a shine to Brad.

Black has a few pratfalls, but eventually he and the other stars of “The Big Year’’ get sucked into schmaltzy subplots straight out of Hollywood’s cliché playbook.