At the end of The Big Year's credits, there are no bloopers, deleted scenes or extended epilogues, but there are hundreds of bird photos from the record Big Year. In my screening, when the lights when up, an adorable older couple laughed that the only people who would be dorky enough to stay through the end of the movie "had to be birders", followed by a few other chuckles from the corners of the theater. It was a moment where I got a glimpse into the minds of target viewers who went into this movie with certain expectations based on a love of the subject matter. This also happened when I saw Moneyball with my sabermetrics-obsessed boyfriend, who I swear had stars in his eyes for a few minutes after we left our seats.

Based on the book of the same title, The Big Year stars Jack Black as Brad Harris, a lovable loser who embarks on a "Big Year" -- an informal competition based on the honor code among birders (and that is "birders," not "bird watchers", ya fool) to see who can see or hear the largest numbers of species of birds within a single calendar year. Brad travels across the country in hopes of outdoing world-champion birder Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) and his record Big Year, bumping into the evil victor along the way and making friends with a fellow competitor, Stu Preissler (Steve Martin). Of course, if you're going for a Big Year, you best keep it to yourself, because the first rule of birding is do not talk about birding unless you want someone to go head-to-head with you and play off of the competitive energy.

Are you bored? I realize that most people will hear this premise and either be turned off because of the not-so-thrilling subject matter, the many similarly premised and downright awful movies (I immediately thought of Rat Race) or the often-obnoxious cast members. But the truth is, this movie is fun and sweet. Sure, the real antagonists in The Big Year are the sands of time themselves and birding truly is just an allegory for life, but if you get past the cheese -- or hey, enjoy the cheese, I'm not here to judge you -- there's a pretty fun story to be told.

Each of the actors sells their character, and I applaud Black, Wilson and Martin on bringing life to archetypes that could have easily suffered from their hokey writing. Instead we were left with a film that was tame, good-natured and, at times, forgivably dull. The Big Year offers a few solid laughs; some beautiful views of the United States; fun cameos by Jim Parsons, Anjelica Huston and Tim Blake Nelson; Joel McHale once again typecast as a loathsome doofus (which I could really do without); and an embarrassingly on-the-nose score composed entirely of songs about birds. The ending is rushed and awkward and doesn't quite work, but each character reaches a satisfying and not entirely predictable conclusion. Not too bad for a film that's for the birders, har har har.

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