Ben Stiller excels at playing genial outsiders lost in their personal grievances; as a director, from the unfairly maligned broadcast satire of "The Cable Guy" through the outlandish fashion world satire of "Zoolander" and the Hollywood satire of "Tropic Thunder," Stiller has shown a penchant for wacky energy that builds on seemingly real world situations with cartoonish absurdity.
On paper, then, the idea of Stiller directing and starring in a new adaptation of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," the 1939 James Thurber short story previously turned into a 1947 feature starring Danny Kaye, makes perfect sense: The actor is a natural fit for the role of an everyman daydreamer lost in far-out heroic fantasies, which present an opportunity for a contrast between normality and dramatic overstatement that Stiller theoretically has the filmmaking chops to explore.
Unfortunately, the actor-director's long-gestating "Walter Mitty" treatment, less an adaptation than an original story that transports the character from Thurber's story into modern times, shows none of the edgy storytelling looniness present in Stiller's finest work. Instead, every element seems calculated to service an easygoing commercial product that plays up the sentimentality of the scenario while rendering it inoffensively bland. Steve Conrad's straightforward screenplay, coupled with warm music cues, Stuart Dryburgh's romantic imagery and a basic triumph-of-the-little-guy plot, give "Walter Mitty" the one-note capriciousness of a swooning Mac commercial. It all goes down light and easy, but to what end?
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