[Movie] The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is super cute. But first I want to bitch about The Lego Movie. I keep seeing previews for this movie, and beyond the fact that the only funny bits involve Batman and Wonderwoman, it annoys me.

So the whole concept here is that the regular dude main character is “the special” who is foretold by prophecy to…I don’t know whatever. Now, I dearly hope that this is all going to be entirely tongue-in-cheek and at the end maybe the lego action chick will realize that prophecy is bullshit and she’ll save the world because wouldn’t that be different for a change. That would be amazing and I would go suffer through the unfunny jokes so I could watch it. But at this point I would bet you anything that the regular dude main character will discover he is actually super special thanks to everyone else telling him he has to be and the girl BELIEVING IN HIM. Because that’s how these things normally work and I’m SO SICK of the destined savior dude plot I can’t even begin to tell you how much. It just gives me flashbacks to Oz the Great and Powerful where the super competent witches of Oz just couldn’t get their shit together because THEY NEEDED THE MAN FORETOLD BY THE PROPHECY.

Barf. Barfity barf barf barf.

Okay. Now I can get back to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which did not feel me with vomitous annoyance.

Honestly, there isn’t that much I really have to say about the movie, other than it manages to hit all the right notes of cute, funny, heartwarming, and human without it quite seeming like Ben Stiller was going down a checklist to make sure he’d gotten everything. And to be honest, I’ve actually always liked Ben Stiller, and I liked him in this movie. He had a couple moments that played a little too hard for the comedy and came off a bit sour because of it, but otherwise I thought he was incredibly heartfelt.

As far as the plot goes, if you’ve seen the trailer, you know what the movie is about. But it’s ultimately the search for the missing negative as a stand-in for Walter figuring out how to actually get out there and fucking do things, which is the part where so many people fall short. (Seriously, we all know someone or have been the guy who said something like well, I’d write a novel if, or I’d go to Thailand if, or I thought about doing something but then I just didn’t…) But the point of the movie really isn’t the conclusion or the simple concept behind the story…it’s the journey that we go on with Walter.

Man, and it is beautiful. As soon as Walter gets out of the office, there isn’t a shot in that movie that isn’t just breathtaking. I think my favorite shot out of the movie is still the longboard scene in Iceland. Oh gosh.

The only real objection I have is there’s a scene where they drive away from a pyroclastic flow from a volcano. That always drives me batty. But I know it’s just me.