When I first read the thumbnail on this one — washed-up Hollywood action hero seeks redemption by staging serious play, with most scenes transpiring backstage at a Broadway theater — I thought, what a boring excuse for a bit of meta navel-gazing that will interest no one outside the profession. Couldn't have been more wrong.

Aside from its annoyingly punctuated full title, "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" inspires renewed faith in what we used to go to the movies for — original storytelling, enveloping escape, heart-stopping camera work and enough "wait, what's going on here?" to keep us intrigued from beginning to end.

Shot in just 30 days at the St. James Theatre off Times Square in New York, "Birdman" is by turns intimate, surreal and darkly funny, also boasting the remarkable visual effect of appearing to have been shot in one continuous take.

Plus, you'll get your lifetime-guaranteed fill of eyeballing Michael Keaton in tighty whities (and Edward Norton in a splashier option).

Keaton plays Riggan Thompson, who recently turned down the chance to play costumed movie superhero Birdman a third time in favor of a riskier, less lucrative but more prestigious project: directing and starring in a stage version of a Raymond Carver short story.

When a co-star gets injured just before previews, another boldface name whose talent is exceeded only by his conceit, Mike Shiner (a perfectly cast Edward Norton), cruises in as a last-minute replacement. As Mike begins to upset applecarts with his Method acting and unsolicited suggestions, Riggan also wrestles with his just-out-of-rehab assistant/daughter Sam (the delightful Emma Stone).

Michael Keaton, left, and Edward Norton mix it up in “Birdman.”

Best pal/producer Jake (a newly svelte, underused Zach Galifianakis) repeatedly talks panicked, depressed Riggan off the ledge. A haughty crabapple of a New York Times critic (Lindsay Duncan) threatens to burn him down before the show has even opened. Naomi Watts and Andrea Riseborough as the play's insecure women stars and Amy Ryan as Riggan's compassionate ex all add interesting side drama.

Keaton (who played another superhero, Batman, twice) is a polarizer; people seem to love or hate him. Whatever your view, it's tough to dispute the new layered depths he brings to Riggan, who goes on periodic flights of fancy high above the streets of New York, inhabited by his alter ego/cynical conscience, Birdman.

Writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu ("Babel," "21 Grams," "Biutiful") gracefully weaves these magical-realism interludes between the more grounded activity in the dressing rooms and musty halls of the St. James.

Another trademark of Iñárritu, who was once a DJ in Mexico City, is his exceptional ear for music that enriches a film's sensory impact without distracting from the action. In this case, it's an almost entirely percussive score composed by Grammy-winning jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez.

Daring, imaginative and a technical tour de force, "Birdman" is the cinematic antidote to actual superhero flicks and overblown Broadway shows.

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046