The year is nearly up and it has been a great year for movies. Before my review, I have a quick announcement to make. For those of you that read my posts, firstly thank you very much, and secondly my top 10 movies of the year list is coming very soon. However, once that list has been posted, I will be seeing other 2013 releases in the early months of 2014. This means that you will get 2 lists; my current top 10 plus an updated version once I've seen more movies. And now for my review...
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is directed by Ben Stiller plus stars him in the title role. Stiller is joined by Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott and Sean Penn in this American remake that was built to be the must-see Christmas release. However, I am sad to inform that Walter Mitty is a disappointing plus and underwhelming film.
The movie follows Walter Mitty, a man living a dull life of unfulfillment and routine working for Life magazine, who constantly zones out from reality and envisages scenarios within his own imagination. However, when he loses a photograph for the magazine's final cover, he embarks on a journey to find the photographer who took it and the photo itself.
I'm sure movie goers have seen the 5 minute trailer before going to see other movies within the past few weeks. If truth be told, if you've seen the trailer you have seen the bulk of the movie. The people in charge of marketing really did contribute to my underwhelming viewing experience.
I was initially very excited to see how Ben Stiller was progressing in his career with his latest project, however I walked out of Walter Mitty feeling that this movie could have been great had it been handled by a director and screenwriters with more experience.
While Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig do good jobs with their performances, it is the movie's screenplay that is it's ultimate downfall. The plot, while potentially interesting, delves into the monotone life of Walter Mitty with every single Hollywood cliché imaginable. There were a fair few times during my viewing of this movie where I said to myself "this is going to happen next", and it did every single time.
Some of the story elements either are unnecessary or don't really make much sense. For example, Walter will have exchanges with certain characters that pop up for a scene or two that make no physical sense whatsoever or just fade away into insignificance.
While the movie does pick up when he goes on his actual adventure, the movie's script continuously brings this movie down. At times it is filled to the brim with goofy dialogue that sends you to sleep or attempts to be funny with some incredibly uncomfortable results. Other characters are either under-used or incredibly misused. The most obvious example I can give is Adam Scott's character. Instead of playing an interesting man, he plays the most over-the-top, cliché dick-head boss who's uninteresting and uncomfortable to watch. It isn't the actor's fault, it's down to the poor writing.
Also, there is a story arc going on involving Walter and a guy called Todd form E-harmony. I wasn't really a fan of it because it seemed to me like a forced plot element that was a quick solution to speed things up a bit. To be honest, a guy from E-harmony calling you at different points during the day doesn't make sense!
What I must say is that it is a good looking movie. If Ben Stiller could bring in better writers, he can flourish as a director even more. Walter Mitty makes use of some brilliant scenic shots that really do bring to life the environments of countries like Greenland and Iceland that Walter visits. Also, even some of the shots where Walter is in New York were impressive to me because they were positioned cleverly and each shot you could tell was carefully crafted.
Some of the stuff Walter imagines makes use of some interesting and imaginative imagery. While cool to look at, the scenarios aren't tense or exciting at all as you know that no harm can happen to him as it's all in his head.
But once again Walter Mitty failed to inspire me because it tried to beat it's audience over the head with an obvious subliminal message. I get it! Leave you routine behind and do what you want to do in life!! Sheesh...
You could tell that Walter Mitty was a bit of a passion project for Stiller, but for me it misfired:
Rating - C-
1 sentence summary - While visually pleasing, a predictable and cliché-ridden plot and lazy writing harm this imaginative tale!
I'm sad because I really did want to like this one. Thank you for reading and also thanks for reading my "top 10 lists" disclaimer at the top. I hope that clears a few things up.
Thanks again,
Matt
