For some reason this meek middle-aged man can do showy skateboard tricks worthy of Shaun White. He's somewhere between an Everyman and a comic goofball, but not enough of either. Though the film is ambitious on most fronts, Stiller inexplicably made Walter a vague character.
And in his endeavor to make a crowd-pleasing, feel-good movie, Stiller blunts the edges and subtlety. Some of the smaller moments work, but the epic sequences, particularly in the climactic meeting with O'Connell on a towering mountain, fall flat. Stiller was aiming for this effort to be substantive, complex and thoughtful. Yet, his journey is un-involving and occasionally convoluted. He dodges an erupting volcano in Iceland and climbs the Himalayas with nary a misstep. The adventures serve more symbolically to help him break out of a lifelong rut. Walter's far-flung expeditions are focused on retrieving a photo negative to be used in the magazine's final print edition. Peripatetic photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn), however, speaks only to Walter at the magazine. He's a photo editor at Life magazine where he's bullied by an obnoxious new boss (Adam Scott) and mocked by co-workers. In Stiller's version Walter has a crush on Cheryl (Kristen Wiig), a down-to-earth co-worker. But by trying to combine fantasy and romance with goofy humor, globe-trotting adventure and feel-good inspiration, Stiller has made Mitty a mixed bag of clashing tones and facile redemption. Stiller, who directs and stars in Mitty, has loosely based his film on the story and given it a contemporary setting. Though he hardly ever has ventured out of his native New York, Walter is able to shed his timidity and exchange his imagined heroic fantasies for the real thing, in record time. In Ben Stiller's well-intentioned but insipid re-invention of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (** out of four rated PG opens Wednesday nationwide), he's a shy daydreamer who goes from zero to hero by flitting off to Greenland, Iceland and the Himalayas. Walter Mitty is an introverted guy with an active fantasy life, according to the classic 1939 short story by James Thurber. Rated PG%3B runtime 1 hour%2C 54 minutes%3B opens Wednesday nationwide.Stars%3A Ben Stiller%2C Kristen Wiig%2C Sean Penn.
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