Although I enjoyed ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations after seeing the trailers. It never quite lives up to the life changing effect the visuals suggest, but its still a pretty fun film.

The film follows Ben Stiller as Walter Mitty, a constantly daydreaming worker bee for Life magazine’s film negative department. Soon after the magazines transition from print to web is announced by recently hired big-wig Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott), Mitty embarks on a cross continent mission to find veteran photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) and receive the negative for Life magazines last cover.

On the side of visuals, this movie is gorgeous. The effects employed during Mitty’s daydreams are creative and really give the audience an idea of how Walter avoids reality. The only downside to this is that the second half of the movie falls a little flat by comparison. There are still some great shots, but it doesn’t have the same level of energy as Walter’s imagination.

Ben Stiller directed and starred in ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’, and I think he did an all around good job the most part. Overall the film was a little lofty for him to fully reign in, but even the disjointed or slow parts of the film were surrounded by fantastic cinematography. Shots of Iceland and Greenland are all over the end of the film, and the camerawork frames the natural beauty of these places very effectively.

Kristen Wiig plays Cheryl Melhoff, Mitty’s love interest in the film, and she and Stiller make a good team. She seems like a real person, even through Walter’s rose colored glasses, but the film doesn’t over do it so it seems forced. Adam Scott is also perfect as Ted Hendricks, an insufferable jerk that Scott has shown himself to be adept at playing in the last few years. He isn’t in the film a lot, but he does well as an antagonist for Mitty’s nice guy persona.

I liked this film, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been. It was a little lopsided and had some issues with pacing, but it was fun to watch and had some imaginative storytelling that makes up a little for where the writing falls short. I do hope Stiller keeps directing stuff like this, though, because this film was only a few steps away from being great. This and ‘Tropic Thunder’ give me high hopes for what he can do in the directors seat, I hope to see more from him in years to come.

3/5 Stars