Spoiler-Free Three-Word Film Review:
Go see it.
Spoilersss-Containing Essay of a Review:
If we have to be shallow, films are merely entertainment and their main duty is to entertain. Not gonna lie, I have enjoyed myself a lot for the duration of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It made me laugh, it gave me thrills, it brought tears to my eyes... It was also aesthetically pleasing. Never thought I would see this level of cinematography in a Ben Stiller movie. Loved the overhead shots (appeared in the trailer too), loved the panning shots, loved the scene in which Stiller skateboards down an Icelandic highway. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was pretty much what you should treat yourself to after a harsh week at work.
I guess it helped that I didn't have high expectation for the movie. In fact, I didn't have expectations at all. For the past few months I have been quite behind the movie scene. I hadn't even known of the movie's existence before I returned home to Hong Kong. But I was glad I'd been living under a rock. Films are always more enjoyable when you know close to nothing about it (because knowing absolutely nothing is impossible). Now I would skip watching trailers, previews and other forms of media that would "spoil" movies... if I could.
Calling a movie delightful does not mean said-movie is perfect. There are a lot of flaws in this movie. I'm too young to know the original story of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Some critised that Ben Stiller's adaptation has lost the spirit of the original story. But some new elements have been added too. Space Oddity and the Jack Johnson song haven't gone out until the 60s and the 21st century respectively. And online dating. I would be very surprised if that has been around since 80 years ago. These all add freshness to the story. Adaption isn’t necessarily synonymous with carbon copy, is it?
Now I will move onto points which I cannot defend:
As I have said, I like it when I don’t know what to expect, but this isn’t the case when what you aren’t expecting is... rather messy that feelings and emotions clash and there’s nothing left at all. When you head into the Secret Life, you think you’re in for a
Is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty funny? Yes, it made me laugh, uncontrollably at times. But some scenes that you know were intended to be funny failed miserably. Neither was the Benjamin Button reference funny, nor was the extremely silly and long fight between Walter Mitty and Ted Hendricks (featuring a Stretch Armstrong toy). And don’t even get me started on the overly long dream sequences. One or two is good. Three is max. I've lost count of the number of daydreams Walter had.
As for the "adventure" bit, again I don't think the film is successful in doing what it's set out to do. You wouldn't want to get a backpack and travel to exotic corners of the world. (OK I lied. I would catch a plane to Iceland in a heartbeat.) Yes, Walter has been to Greenland, Iceland and even Ungoverned Afghanistan. He has swun with sharks in an ocean, escaped from a volcanic eruption, climbed the Himalayas. But how has he changed? Or rather, has he really changed? After his journey, he dressed smarter, he looked cooler, but do we know how has he changed spiritually?
My sister feels that "Ben Stiller made a movie just so he could get in front of the camera for three quarters of the movie's runtime". She's right. But this is a common problem for directors/actors. Personally I love Zoolander, which Stiller also directed himself in*. I guess my sister's issue isn't too big a problem in there because it's essentially about a narcissistic male model. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is totally different from Zoolander. Perhaps Stiller has grown old and decided to do something more serious while still maintaining hilarity. Various directors and actors had actually tried re-making The Secret Life of Walter Mitty for two decades. Had they been successful, the end product would have been very different. I was glad that Ben Stiller was the final contender. Despite the flaws in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I had a very fun Saturday night.
On a side note, I watched this movie at Cine Times, the new cinema in Times Sqaure 13/F. Cine Times is the second cinema in Hong Kong with the new Dolby Atmos sound system (I believe The Grand installed it last summer). The pre-movie advertisement has shown the potential for this system. For the few minutes of the clip, I regretted paying the extra $30 for the Atmos version. It was loud and scary! But luckily (or unluckily?) none of the scenes in the movie matched up to that... It would be cool to watch an action movie utilised with this Dolby Atmos technology... if I don't get a heart attack and die.
Bonus: And because my mum said I look so much like my Bitstrip avatar...
Here's me at the cinema...
