If, on the other hand, you don't like piña coladas . . .

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Crit

Despite a surprisingly positive review by A. O. Scott in the Times, I went into this with low expectations, and as is so often the case, I was thus . . . not much disappointed. The other day I commented that everyone in The Wolf of Wall Street seemed to be having fun, and it pained me not to be able to join in. Here, in contrast, no one seems to be having fun, except maybe Kristen Wiig when she gets to sing "Space Oddity."

And can I just say one thing about the ridiculous and undisciplined plot? No one with the experience working with film that Mitty (Ben Stiller, who also directed, if that's what you call it) and his assistant have could possible have failed to notice that a roll of film came into the lab in more than one piece. There's nothing wrong with an implausible plot in a fantasy story, but it needs not to rest upon an implausibility in the reality-grounded portion. Moreover, this is an unnecessary implausibility: either have them notice the gap immediately (that they fail to at first is not important to the plot) or have the roll end with frame 24, with the critical frame 25 having been cut from the end, leaving an apparently intact roll. Misplaying stuff like this is sloppy and stupid and insulting to the people who paid to get in.

Fortunately, I do not demand greatness, or even solid mediocrity, from my final film in a calendar year.