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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (29th April 2014). |
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The Film
 "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is a prime example of a film that had languished in development hell for decades before it finally saw fruition, almost everyone of note and several studios in Hollywood since the mid 90's had been attached to this project. Originally it was conceived as a starring vehicle for Jim Carrey for New Line Cinema but that version never got off the ground. Several versions, few other studios and many years later - Sacha Baron Cohen was almost cast, Mike Myers was at one time cast, until Owen Wilson stepped in, but dropped out before Ben Stiller took the role. The film even had a revolving door policy for directors, Ron Howard, Gore Verbinski, Steven Spielberg, Chuck Russell and Mark Waters have all considered jumping aboard this adventure. None of them worked out in the end, and Stiller himself chose to helm the ambitious and broad adventure. This film is essentially a remake of a film with the same title from 1947 and the second time that >a href=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0862122/>James Thurber's 1939 short story has been adapted by screenwriter Steve Conrad. The film had so many different versions I'm sure each screenplay was moulded for the star taking the lead role, upon Ben Stiller's announcement I was worried this film would end up as another vehicle for Stiller's usual shtick, which over the last few years had grown tired. The first trailer showcased something a little different than what most audiences where used to from Stiller, it showed a more sombre, melancholic tone with some added sugar. If anything "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" was going to be a heartwarming, family friendly, sugary sweet adventure. And the film essentially delivered on the trailer's promise, only to mixed reviews and didn't light up the box office as the studio expected, under performing domestically but managing to make a profit during its International run. Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is a solitary figure, an asset manager at Life Magazine, he spends his days daydreaming of adventure and of escape from his mundane existence. His meek demeanour makes him an easy target for work place bullies, including Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott), an executive brought in to facilitate the closing down of the magazine. Walter's job is now in jeopardy as well as his secret crush, Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig), Walter takes action and embarks in a real world global journey that turns into a extraordinary life changing event bigger than anything he could have ever imagined. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" celebrates everything about taking life by the horns, it's a film that many people can easily relate to, stuck in a boring office job? Living your life day to day? Not taking any chances? well consider this film your motivational kick in the butt to get out there and to not just live life, but to experience it. The problem is that the film is so smug and saccharine that it does get tiresome after a while. Stiller plays a more subdued version of himself, opting not to focus on his usual comedy styling. Walter is a dreamer, a meek non-confrontational person and he does a decent job of portraying the character, his growth over the course of the film is handled with a natural flow as he gains more and more confidence and starts to experience life and adventure. When the adventure kicks in is truly where this movie shines. The scale and scope of the film is broad, with wonderful dream sequences that feature some stunning visual elements. Walter pushing Ted through a high-rise window being one particularly memorable moment. The Icelandic locations add a sense of grandeur to the production and matched with Stuart Dryburgh's photography makes this film look incredible. On a technical level this film hits all the marks, however many distractions regarding the cast, the tone and the inordinate amount of product placement weaved into the narrative are all marks against this film, and perhaps is in a large part why the film wasn't a total home run at the box office. There's charm here, and a lot of it, but that's not enough. Cynical film goers might want to give this one a miss, If you loved "Forrest Gump" (1994) and believe it deserved to win Best Picture over contenders "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994) or "Pulp Fiction" (1994) then you'll love "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" as they're both films cut from the same cloth.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.40:1 mastered in HD 1080p 24/fps using AVC MPEG-4 compression. This image is terrific, it's nothing short of brilliant. The detail is incredible with the HD format showing off the intricacies of locations and production design. Colors are wonderfully rendered, rich and with decent contrast. Skin tones appear natural and depth looks great, from the packed streets of New York to the grand black rock geography of Iceland. This is a clean, pristine image with no traces of any flaws. It's about as reference quality as you can get.
Audio
Fox has packed this disc with many audio options, English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz/24-bit) surround as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks in English Descriptive, Czech, French, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian with a Russian DTS 5.1 surround track as well. The audio is breathtaking, dialogue is crystal clear, the depth and range of the track is brilliant showing off the complex environmental sounds of the locations to the well constructed score. This is a well mixed and overall spectacular sound mix that'll work well to showcase your surround sound package. Optional subtitles are included in Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, English HoH, Estonian, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin (Simplified), Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish (Latin), Turkish, Ukrainian.
Extras
Fox has released this film with a decent amount of supplements, sad an audio commentary is nowhere to be seen, this would have been a welcomed addition. What you do get are a series of deleted, extended and alternate scenes, a collection of nine featurettes, a pre-viz sequence, a gallery, a music video, the film's original theatrical trailer as well as a DVD copy and digital copy of the film. Below is a closer look at these extras. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY First up are a series of five deleted scenes (1080p), they can be viewed individually or with a 'play all' option, cut for the usual reasons, they either didn't advance the story or were too long, they include: (7:30): - "Morning Routine" runs for 2 minutes 7 seconds, this is essentially an alternate opening to the film which shows Walter's routine in the morning before heading off to work. - "Young Odessa Fantasy" runs for 55 seconds, Walter fantasizes his sister Odessa as a young girl giving him grief. - "Jester Fantasy" runs for 59 seconds, Ted addresses the staff, Walter imagines Ted as a court jester. - "Manfree Fantasy" runs for 1 minute 52 seconds, Walter imagines Cheryl as his mistress and he as her servant. - "Impound Lot" runs for 2 minutes 1 second, Odessa picks up Walter from the airport and takes him to the impound lot to get the piano back which was left behind in a parking spot, Walter tells her what he's been up to in Iceland. Two extended scenes (1080p) are included, they can also be viewed individually or with a 'play all' option, they include: - "Extended Arctic Fantasy" runs for 2 minutes 50 seconds, this is an extended version of the fantasy Walter has as an arctic explorer chatting up Cheryl. - "Christmas Walk" runs for 1 minute 49 seconds, this is an extended version of the Christmas time walk where an old Walter proposes ending with a "Benjamin Button" style ending. Two alternate scenes (1080p) are also included they can be viewed individually or with a 'play all' option, they include: - "Fly to Greenland Alternate Music" runs for 2 minutes 37 seconds, this is the flight to Greenland sequence just with a different musical score than the one used in the film. - "Severance Package" runs for 1 minute 12 seconds, this shows a slightly different version of the scene where Walter collects his severance package. There are several Behind the Scenes featurettes in a sub menu, they include: - "The History of Walter Mitty" (1080p) featurette runs for 3 minutes 39 seconds, this clip takes a look at the impact of the original short story, the universal nature of the story, and on adapting it for the screen. - "The Look of Life" (1080p) featurette runs for 5 minutes 1 second, this clip takes a closer look at the character of Walter and on making him an employee of Life Magazine, on the writing of the screenplay and designing the look of the production design to achieve a timeless feel. Exploring shooting styles and how color plays an important role among other thing. - "That's a Shark!" (1080p) is a featurette that runs for 5 minutes 57 seconds, this feature takes a look at the Iceland shoot most notably shooting in the Icelandic water filming the shark sequence. The filmmakers tried to shoot as much of the film practically rather than totally depend on CGI. The clip also takes a look at the stunt work for the film. - "The Music of Walter Mitty" (1080p) featurette runs for 4 minutes 1 second, this clip focuses on creating a cinematic and epic score for the film as well as the work of José González for key moments in the film. - "Icelandic Adventure" (1080p) featurette runs for 3 minutes 26 seconds, takes a look at the film crew on location in Iceland to film key scenes and how shooting in a real environment helps create a certain energy. - "Nordic Casting" (1080p) featurette runs for 3 minutes 51 seconds, this clip looks at the casting of local people and actors in the film, we get a look at the screen tests of these actors as well. - "Titles of Walter Mitty" (1080p) featurette runs for 2 minutes 9 seconds, this clip looks at the design of the credit title sequence at the start of the film. Another sub menu is Sights and Sounds of Production which features two featurettes: - "Skateboarding Through Iceland" (1080p) featurette runs for 2 minutes 23 seconds, this is fly on the wall behind the scenes footage of the blocking and shooting of this sequence that see Walter skateboard through Iceland. - "Ted-Walter Fight" (1080p) featurette runs for 2 minutes 48 seconds, this clip takes a look at how the fight was choreographed, blocked and executed. Next up is a pre-viz sequence (1080p) entitled "Ted-Walter Fight Pre-Viz Early Version" which runs for 4 minutes 15 seconds, this is a rough digital rendering of how the scene was designed. "Reference Photography" (1080p) is a gallery features thirteen images of photographs taken as reference material for the film plus one page of photo credits. "Stay Alive" is a music video (1080p) by José González and runs for 4 minutes 22 seconds. The film's original theatrical trailer (1080p) is also included and runs for 1 minute 55 seconds. DISC TWO: DVD This is the standard definition DVD version of the film. Included in the case is a code to unlock the UltraViolet digital copy version of the film.
Packaging
Packaged in a 2-disc Blu-ray case housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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