The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

A light-hearted and optimistic movie about the “quintessence of life" which entertains in an non-intrusive manner so rare today, even managing to intimate some wisdom about life. Stiller has grown a little still as a director and the polished visuals are amazingly pleasant to the eye. Like a nature documentary without annoying explanatory digressions. Eyjafjallajokull. (30/03/2014)

Walter Mitty used to be a punk and skateboarder with lots of crazy ideas and the belief that the world would be at his feet one day. Today, he is a shy and unassuming middle-aged man who spends most of his time in the archive and escapes more and more often into the realm of dreams, where he successfully competes with comic book heroes and has no trouble impressing his sympathetic colleague, with whom he would like to establish an intimate relationship. The loss of an important negative and his awakened professional pride provoke him to leave his safe shell. The following days turn into a magnificent journey during which Walter visits three continents and convinces himself that dreams can become reality. For several generations, movie viewers have turned to the film medium to escape from mundane reality into a world of boundless fantasy, and Walter gives them hope that even ordinary people like them can experience wonderful adventures and achieve something great. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty combines several genres from comedy to romance and road movie, and it must be said that it works well, partly thanks to Ben Stiller's commitment, who saw this project as a unique opportunity to break free from the stereotype of cheap entertainers and become a respected versatile creator. The film has divided critics and journalists into two sharply contrasting positions overseas. Some speak of it as a highly entertaining, well-executed film that deserves an Oscar, if not in the main categories, then at least for its technical aspects. Others speak with the same enthusiasm about cheap sentimentality, sycophancy, and unfulfilled ambitions that should be rewarded with a Golden Raspberry. Let's face it, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is as middlebrow as it gets, but I can say for myself that I really enjoyed it, appreciated the excellent camera work with beautiful nature images, and I dare to recommend The Secret Life of Walter Mitty as an ideal example of a family film that can work across generations, educational backgrounds, and gender differences. Overall impression: 90%. (14/01/2014)

I’ve been struggling with Walter Mitty, even after watching it for the second time on the big screen. It has beautiful landscapes, an upbeat soundtrack and a positive mood. But when I stop to look at it intellectually, it seems like a coloring book that doesn’t make much sense and its message about life is too half-baked and insubstantial to be more than an exotic yet forgettable family flick. Walter Mitty sees the world through the eyes of a carefree and cheerful child with no real life experience. (16/01/2014)

In addition to virtual relationships, in the introduction Stiller also cautiously raises a middle finger to corporate capitalism, which strips people of their individuality and transforms individuals into pawns who are willing to do anything to hold on to their jobs. A person’s own body – or rather mind – thus becomes his or her last refuge. The liberating power of the imagination allows one to at least dream of doing noble deeds worthy of great romantic heroes, who were long ago displaced from reality and put into epic Hollywood fairy tales. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is not ashamed to admit that it is itself such a fairy tale whose message justifies its numerous spectacular scenes. The second half of the film is made up of a series of stirring adventure stories whose aesthetic concept is consciously inspired by magazine covers, since Walter escapes from his daily routine into photographs from prestigious magazines. Though the special-effects sequences blur the line between dream and reality to such an extent that the difference becomes irrelevant (instead of creating a certain tension), they also gently complement the characteristics of the main protagonist. Even though the romantic subplot seems superfluous on the surface and the film may seem like a self-improvement handbook for men who don’t know what to do with their lives, other people (his girlfriend, Sean O'Connell, his mother and, indirectly, even his deceased father) directly and indirectly support Walter in his solo adventures and compel him to continue in them throughout the film. In the current “contactless” era, a very welcome feature of this film is its effort to convince viewers not to live only in the virtual world and to not be afraid to realise their dreams, to not be selfish and to not stop thinking of others even in the most difficult moments (due to which the film seems more conformist than the roughly similar anarchistic action flick Wanted). Walter Mitty demonstrates that Stiller is able to suppress his eccentric comic nature in favour of a relatively serious idea. However, that seriousness is fortunately never taken so far that the film would completely step outside the realm of feel-good entertainment for the big screen and for the whole family. With the benefit of hindsight and in all seriousness, I wouldn’t hesitate to call Walter Mitty the most positive movie surprise of last year. 85% (13/01/2014)

If Stiller had not tripped himself up so unsportingly immediately during the New York part when Walter’s over the top stories are like something out of Tropical Storm and so completely at odds with the mood and atmosphere that it is trying for (successfully from the moment when they set off on their journey) my impressions would have been much more positive. Even so, this just couldn’t shake off the label of “the movie that tried so hard, but so hopelessly for two hours to achieve what they achieved incomparably better in the first trailer". (17/01/2014)