The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Christmas Day always seems to bring a ton of distractions with it. There are the 180 NBA games that are playing on television that day, which allow you to fall in and out of asleep to while watching them after scarfing down 20 lbs of ham and turkey, there are 1500 screaming kids running around, none of whose parents seem to be anywhere in sight, and of course there are all of the relentless questions about your personal life and future plans. When I ventured down to San Antonio to be with the majority of my family I hadn’t seen that many Black people gathered together in one scene since 12 Years A Slave. Speaking of, as I walked in I immediately caught the aroma of the repulsive southern black delicacy chitlins; otherwise known as pig intestines. I shouted as loud as I possibly could “Regardless of what Kanye says, we are no longer slaves!!! We can now eat the better part of the pig!”

After I ate and tossed a few children in the air, I moved on to the next distraction that Christmas brings with it and that’s movies. This can be good and bad in that the good is, it allows you to escape from your family when needed. The bad is, you get Hollywood trying to shove what they believe to be Oscar bait down your throat. With The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, they started their propaganda a few months earlier with their variety of their loud ads that included Arcade Fire blaring over the speakers and old people running with no particular destination in sight. I recognized their stupid formula from a mile away; put an aging comedian/comedy actor like Ben Stiller in the lead, have an “I didn’t know she was still alive” actress in Shirley MacLaine on screen just to prove that she can still talk, and create this overly sappy human interest story where the lead rediscovers their youth or love or whatever you can think of to give old people hope.

Now don't get me wrong, I really wanted the movie to be good but I can’t tell you how happy I was when I walked in the theater and saw that it was nearly empty and noticed that half of the jokes fell completely flat within the first hour. Maybe the rest of America is starting to recognize this silly formula as well. The one joke that kind of turned things around was a particularly odd day dream sequence where Ben Stiller turned into Benjamin Button while hooking up with Kristen Wiig; I’ll leave the punchline for you to discover on your own.

But if you haven’t been slapped across the face with the previews yet, the story is about a middle aged Walter who apparently has never done anything interesting or note worthy (in an annoyingly high pitched voice) in his life. When he was a kid, he took risks and was a skate boarder but when his dad died, he stopped living and became this play it safe, no frills kind of guy that only truly lives through his constant day dreaming. He works for Life magazine which has just been bought out by another company and they are about to publish their last cover amid rumors of massive layoffs. Life’s go to photographer in Sean Penn, has only worked with Walter and he has sent him what is considered to be his masterpiece pic for their final cover photo. The only problem is, Walter can’t find the negative and he is stressing out as his new boss is constantly on him to produce it. So with the egging of his wannabe love interest Kristin Wiig, he sets off on this world wide journey to track down Penn in order to find out what happened to the negative, as it was the only one missing from the reel of prints he sent.

Speaking of Wiig, I like her but she was an awful miscast in this role. Her comedic style doesn’t work for this role at all and the writers didn’t do her any favors by giving her material or a character that fits her personality. So she just comes off as this wooden woman who appears to be reading off of a teleprompter. Was Jennifer Connelly not available? I’d run around the world naked while singing Billy Joel hits just to get with her! Anyway, while he's on his journey, Walter discovers that being adventurous is the true essence of life and he is becoming less recognizable to himself and to his friends, as the old person he used to be is slowly starting to fade away.

It’s not that this is a bad movie, I actually kind of liked it. It’s just that most of it falls flat and it seems really forced; especially his over the top jerk of a new boss. And I of course can’t forget the annoying Sean Penn forcing in his “take a step back and appreciate life” persona. I just want one good punch at him; but the problem is, I can see myself wanting to grab a beer with him afterwards as well. Oh well, this movie is WEAK and I suggest you stream it via Netflix. Also try not to puke at the shameless ads for E harmony and Papa John's.