Its one more to the feel good- inspiring movie genre which pokes you and asks you to chase your dreams and live your life. The secret life of Walter Mitty definitely has this unique day dreaming idea inserted in between the cliched inferior feelings of our central protagonist. But with a lot of usual recipe and the very predictable scripting on the whole makes this movie an average one time watch.
The story here has our central protagonist Walter Mitty. A day dreamer who works as the photographs negative assets manager in a magazine. As the authorities have decided to make the magazine an online one, they have asked Walter to get the image sent to them by renowned photographer Sean O’Connell for the last edition of the printed magazine. The particular negative being missing from the reel, Mitty is on a short and adventurous journey to get it from Sean itself. The eventful journey and how it transforms Walter Mitty altogether is what the movie all about. ( What I wrote as the plot was there in the trailer.)
The relatively silent treatment and Walter’s weirdo imaginations surely helps the movie in generating a kind of curiosity. But as the story progresses, this attribute of the character looses its significance or I should say we as an audience are no longer attracted by these elaborate imaginations. And the Greenland-Iceland portions did remind me the Amy Adams in The Leap Year. The difference is probably that they replaced the romance part of leap year with the “enjoy your life” motto. Having seen these kind of self evolving scripts, the movie doesn’t really appeal to you with its scripting structure. Some really cool visual effects combined with attractive visuals and scattered sequences that manages to develop some pleasing philosophies about life makes this movie enjoyable.
The direction from Ben Stiller couldn’t take the movie to a unique level as the used out content required freshness in treatment. The script was able to create some moments with its positive preaching, but the events that happened in Mitty’s life lacked the rhythm which we expect. Cinematography is really impressive as it showed the beauty of many parts of the world. The visual effects part was also cool. Kristen Wiig as Cheryl Melhoff wasn’t that convincing.
In terms of acting Ben Stiller was successful in portraying the main protagonist by nicely mixing the shyness and maturity. Adam Scott was nice in his boss role and the beard was an interesting one. Sean Penn was cool in his small appearance.
Overall, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is watchable but not that memorable. Depending on your mood, some dialogs may create an impact on you. My rating is 2.5/5 for this Ben Stiller movie.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
