Movie Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a visually beautiful, wonderful fantasy drama comedy film that comes with a simple but essential life message that's both inspiring and make you feel good at the same time. This film is essentially about a boring, hardworking, single and lonely, middle-class daydreamer with an active imagination, who frequently 'zoned out' to undergo fantastic adventures in his mind.

In this film, Stiller allows the character he portrays to shine, showing the gradual change in his character throughout the film without a differing core personality. Although the starting of the film suffers a few minor 'hiccups' due to a few abrupt, over-the-top fantasy dream adventures, the film starts to improve as Walter embarks on a life-altering adventure that manages to inspire and affect the audience without the feeling of being pretentious.

Personally, I'm not sure why most of the professional critics dislike it so much, with some even mentioning that his fantasy adventures are greater than his actual trip he embarked in the second half of the film. Although his fantasies are greatly exaggerated by the usage of modern CGI and feels 'big', but his actual journey were nothing short of impressive as not many of us would be lucky enough to encounter such events in our personal travels. (spoilers: read the *** below only after you watched the film.)

The film also reminds us of the current problem of our generation, the obsession of taking great photographs. Yes, photographs are important. It lets us reminisce the good old memories of the past. But, don't forget to live the moment as well as they're precious and brief.

Very highly recommended. This is a fun film with a whole-hearted simple story. Try to put your cynicism aside and just enjoy it, let Walter 'take' you into his fantastical journey. You'll not be disappointed.

Rating: 8.5/10

"Don't work too hard in life, live it. Don't just dream too much about doing something, do it. Don't just obsess about taking photos for every great moment in your life, learn to live these precious moments as well."

"Life is about courage and going into the unknown"

"Beautiful things don't ask for attention."

"To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind wall, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life."








***Perhaps the critics don't realise how hard it is to survive from a shark attack from very cold sea waters, cycle around the roads of Iceland, to witness the beautiful landscapes of Iceland, to daringly skateboard your way to a town, to barely escape from a volcano eruption, to encounter and barter with the warlords in ungoverned Afghanistan, to hike the mountains of Himalayas or even damn lucky enough to see a snow leopard in the wild (Snow leopards are very shy, elusive cats known for their solitary nature, are rarely seen in the wild.Total estimated population could be 4000-7000).