Movie: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
It’s been an on/off relationship ever since the extra-long trailer/hype started (seemingly) about 2.5 years ago. I almost wasn’t bothered about seeing it. It’s the music that puts me off; the quirky wailing tunes that seem to have taken over many film soundtracks since around Juno.It was hearing that many scenes were filmed in Iceland that swung my ticket buying vote and those were highlights. Seeing the scenes of people escaping from volcanoes bought back memories of our trip there in 2011, although we didn’t have to run from exploding mountains. In fact we consciously drove towards them.The story is quite old, in that it was based on something written in the 1930s. And it's also the old story; single man lives boring life, working in boring company for many years and has no other ambition. Except that’s not true. Walter Mitty works for the ground breaking Life Magazine, he manages a photo department and has a vivid imagination. Or as his mum and sister refer to it, he has periods when he zones-out.This is when he imagines he is saving the cat(?) from a burning building, belonging to the girl of his dreams. Or that he’s on a polar exhibition but every heroic day-dream result in him getting the girl.Its only when he faces redundancy as the magazine is taken over with a view to be shutting down that suddenly, Mitty (Ben Stiller, who also directed) starts to live the fantasies for real, which is how he ends up in Iceland. The only issue that doesn’t sit right is why; he is sent a present by his favourite photographer along with the last film (yes, delightfully old school) which contained ‘number 25’ for the last magazine cover shot. Only Mitty lost it, or as I see it, it was never received and chased the elusive photographer all over the world and his adventure began. I liked the clever use of words appearing in random places by way of explanation. No doubt this trick will be picked up and over-used in films all the time now.And I always love a feel-good film, even if it is a very ‘done’ story. Just change the music.7/10Smile factor 8/10Coffee rating Espresso