BEFORE: This time I'm ignoring the Nicole Kidman track ("Moulin Rouge", "Practical Magic") to stick with Sean Penn, who carries over from "The Interpreter". And this way the month of April ends as it began, sort of, this being a remake of my April 1 film. Sort of. This creates some symmetry, and I love symmetry almost as much as I love linking films by actor. Three (?) days now until "Avengers: Age of Ultron".
THE PLOT: When his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, Walter takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947) (Movie #1,991)
AFTER: Well, parts of me just don't know what to do with this film - it's not funny enough to be a comedy, not in the most familiar sense, and it's not really dramatic enough to be a drama. There's action in it, but it's not really an action film. Some romance too, but I wouldn't slot it in the romance category either. And it's got about as much to do with the original Danny Kaye version as a remake of "Casablanca" would if you set it in outer space. If this film were a contestant on "American Idol", it would belt out spectacular songs in rock, pop, gospel, and country, only to have the judges accuse it of not really knowing what kind of a singer it wants to be.
It's all over the map, literally and figuratively, as Walter Mitty, LIFE magazine's negative asset manager with a penchant for daydreaming, impulsively sets out to track down the photographer he's worked with for years (they've never met, but he's processed all of his film negatives) to find the missing photo that COULD be good enough to make the cover of the magazine's last print edition. Supposedly LIFE has been acquired (from the Time/Life company? Yeah, how did someone make that happen?) and its new corporate bosses want to convert it to an online magazine, or photo-site, or social something-or-other.
(ASIDE: Yes, print is dying. We've been hearing this for years, but it's a funny thing - people still read newspapers, buy magazines and collect comic books, all in paper. With the possible exception of Betamax machines, new technology does not always completely replace old tech. People still ride horses, at least I think they do, people still have analog watches, I bet you can probably still find a payphone in a couple places. Me, I still record on VHS every day - I've got that high-tech system that allows me to watch a show in any room in my house, provided there's a VCR in that room. Marvel Comics wants me to enjoy a FREE digital version of the paper comic I just bought. Well, if I've got the paper version, why the heck do I need a digital one? Shouldn't they be offering the digital versions to the people who DON'T already have the comic? I'm not getting the concept.)
I empathize with Walter Mitty here, because I work in animation production, and we heard for years about how 35mm film was dying. Our studio has tried to roll with the changes and embrace the new technologies like DCPs on hard drives, and putting films on Vimeo on Demand, but I bet we'll still be selling DVDs for years to come. You just can't have the director autograph a film that you downloaded, like he would a DVD case.
Anyway, back to Walter. He's looking for love while stuck in a dead-end (but respectable) office job, and he has to process photos taken by a world-traveling photographer, while he stays put. Yeah, I've been there, and that last part's gotta really sting. But the world needs office workers, too. Maybe he should just go on vacation once in a while, but the main problem here is that he seems incapable of having fun. It's notable that once he does get out to DO things, the daydreams disappear. Once your life becomes exciting enough that you're achieving your dreams, then I guess you don't need dreams - or maybe you just need new ones. Forrest Gump said "Life is like a box of chocolates", but if you let those chocolates stay on the shelf too long, they're going to go stale.
My point is, it's good to have a hobby, or at least a thing - and a man's reach should exceed his grasp, but at some point you've just got to stand on a stepladder and go for it. Maybe you want to visit every Starbucks on the West Coast, maybe you secretly dream of jumping on a plane and finding out for sure if you prefer BBQ from Memphis, Kansas City or Texas (not the Carolinas, though - that's crazy talk.). For me, it's been collecting Star Wars autographs, I've assembled over 85 signed 8x10 cast photos, and just as I'm about 2 actors away from being able to call the collection complete (more or less...), here comes Episode VII and I'll have to start on a new list of actors.
(ASIDE: Don't be so quick to harsh on someone else's dreams - we were at a party last Saturday, and I overheard a woman talking about Nepal, how she was having difficulty reaching her father there. I thought, "Oh, great, another hipster girl bragging about how her father is climbing Mount Everest or something." The next morning I read about the earthquake in the newspaper, and suddenly her conversation made a lot more sense, and also took on a more somber tone in retrospect.)
While I don't really have a problem with the story here, I have what I guess I'll have to call a format problem. The daydream concept allows the film, with the aid of special effects, to make just about anything imaginable happen. That's where we are with effects these days, if a writer can think of it, a pixel-pushing crew takes over and can make it (appear to) happen. SO, if they can make darn near anything happen, why did they choose THESE things to happen, over THOSE things? How do you parse the entire set of possible things to put on film, and end up with some of the weird scenarios seen here? I mean, do you start with everything everywhere and narrow the focus until you get two people falling from a building and then street-surfing through traffic while fighting over an action figure? What's the process? Or does a writer just throw a dart at a dartboard filled with random nouns?
The film hits a better stride once Walter stops dreaming about it and starts being about it - following photos and other clues to retrace this photographer's travels, just to ask him a simple question. But this itself presents a NITPICK POINT - why didn't he just CALL the guy? Walter's cell phone works everywhere he goes, does the photographer NOT have a cell phone? Walter had people looking for Sean's address, when he should have been asking around for his number. And this leads to:
NITPICK POINT 2 - which is basically, "We're on deadline. We need that image as soon as possible." "OK, I'll just take a flight to Greenland, even though I'm not sure that they guy has it, or if he is even there." What? How is flying to another country the fastest way of doing something? Again, technology. Scan it, fax it, dropbox it, upload it to the web, Google it, freaking send it by goddamn FedEx - any of those are faster than "get on a plane and start looking for a guy", which has the potential to be a long quest with no fixed end point.
And this brings me back to the format problem. Since some of Walter's adventures were just a little TOO amazing, that brings up the possibility that none of them really happened, that they were also daydreams. Maybe he never stopped having fantasies, maybe they just kept growing in scope until they took over his reality - sure, he believes that he went to Iceland and Afghanistan, but DID HE? How can I be sure which of his adventures really happened, if any? Besides, it's a film, so none of it is really real in the end, anyway.
But this also says something about the state of entertainment today - in this post-"Inception" world, what is cinema reality? When a new actor takes over the role of Spider-Man or Batman - when the makers of "Star Wars" ask me to forget about all the books I've read that take place after "Return of the Jedi" - when Marvel Comics destroys their universe (oh, it's coming...) and puts it back together with differently-shaped pieces - what am I supposed to do with the realities that came before, and are no longer being supported by customer service? I can't un-watch, un-read or un-remember those things!
Also starring Ben Stiller (last seen in "Your Friends and Neighbors"), Kristen Wiig (last seen in "Friends With Kids"), Adam Scott (ditto), Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "Postcards From the Edge"), Kathryn Hahn (last seen in "We're the Millers"), Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Young Adult"), Jon Daly, Adrian Martinez (also carrying over from "The Interpreter"), Olafur Darri Olafsson, with cameos from Joey Slotnick, Conan O'Brien, Andy Richter.
RATING: 6 out of 10 horny Chileans
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