The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Stars Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Shirley MacLane, Kathryn Hahn, Patton Oswald, and Sean Penn, and is also directed by the star himself, Ben Stiller. We follow the somewhat boring life of Walter Mitty, who does have a boring life working for LIFE Magazine processing negatives for photographers, but Walter has a pretty crazy life…in his mind. He then receives a role of negatives from a famous photographer, played by Penn, and one of the negatives is missing. The one negative just happens to be the one Penn wants on the last cover of the magazine, so Walter sets out to find him to see what happened with that missing negative.
I really enjoyed The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and I know it has been getting a lot of mixed reviews from critics out there. I think, for some, they were hoping for more of an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind kind of style to it, which this movie is nothing like. The movie is visually stunning though, and I commend Stiller on how he used the camera for these locations Walter goes to on his adventure. I also like Stiller as an actor, and really enjoy him playing the dull Mitty with a crazy imagination. Kristen Wiig was also a great in the flick, and it was actually nice seeing her play a “normal” character, since she usually goes for more of those crazy comedy roles. Not that those roles are bad at all, it was just nice to see her play a different kind of role. Sean Penn also does a great job in the movie, and you believe his character as this dedicated photographer. He isn’t in the movie as much as you might think, but when he is, he does a great job.
Now we get to Adam Scott’s character, and this is the character, I could’ve lived without. He plays the cliche douchebag character that is the pretty much the enemy of Walter Mitty, and it just wasn’t needed at all in this movie. His entire character was just idiotic, all the way to his beard that was either dyed way too dark, or was fake. Walter’s sister, played by Kathryn Hahn, was also a character that really wasn’t needed in the story. She just didn’t really fit in this kind of movie. Patton Oswald’s character that was thrown in there for some comedy relief, and sometimes it worked, but I felt his character was surely overused.
All and all, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was enjoyable to watch, and it is actually a nice family film. The comedy doesn’t always work, but when it does, you will laugh, but the real beauty of the film is the cinematography. Check out my video review below if you want to, and let me know if you have seen it already, and what you thought about it.