The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), PG, 2 stars

Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig having a natural conversation.

Everybody daydreams at one point or another. The question is what does anybody daydream about? Basically, daydreaming is imagining all aspects of a fantasy or an image that nobody could ever realize in their own minds. Also, it is what happens when you go to sleep and can think about anything what's going on in your brain or mind in the state of hibernation. However, in this movie, when someone frequently daydreams of fantastic adventures, the imagination captures the magic well to anchor the spectacle, but unfortunately, the magic seems to interfere with the confusing story.

The movie opens with Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) going over his expenses while he is about to go to eHarmony to check out a profile of a co-worker named Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig). After being hesitant to send in a wink, he clicks and sends in a wink but the computer does not approve. After a few more attempts, he gives up and frustratingly leaves his room and closing down his laptop. He basically calls eHarmony and speaks to a representative named Todd (Patton Oswalt) about his empty profile. Meanwhile, he daydreams about a three-legged dog being in danger and rescuing the dog out of the building before the building exploded and Cheryl thanking him and Walter handing her a prosthetic. But, he misses his train.

Walter works at his job as a negative assets manager at Life Magazine where he works for a new smug boss named Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott). He receives a package from a famed photographer, Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn). The package has a bunch of negatives and a note saying that negative 25 is special because it represents the "quintessence of life" and he thanks him, but negative 25 is missing among all the other negatives. So basically when he searches for clues among the other negatives, his journey begins to find Sean O'Connell and find the missing negative.

Walter and Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn) looking at something and taking a picture of it.

My problem with this movie is that I was confused by its different tones and themes mixing with Walter's narrative drive and the lack of focus on its story seems to be all over the map based on those difficulties. Actually, the story is the weakest part of the movie. It felt like when Walter guides his own path to do something in the climax, certain characters are sidelined in the story. However, he puts on so much focus on Walter's emotions and special effects, it is self-indulgent.

Ben Stiller is fine in the role not with much surprising results. I mean, as a director of his own movie, at times, it felt like a spiritual commercial for the movie in the middle of the Super Bowl commercials. He and Kristen Wiig create a cute chemistry, but somehow, it was a predictable romance. In any other movie, it would've worked. Shirley MacLaine does not get a lot of screen time, but she is really good as Walter's mother and Sean Penn is effective as the famed photographer.

Although, I was confused and entranced at the same time in some moments of the movie, the best scenes or moments were the fantasies. It seemed the fantasies themselves were funny and a little magical as the movie goes along. But, the story was so painfully distracting that I had no idea what Walter is doing. This movie was like scattered pieces of the puzzle all over the floor and it seemed to take a long time to put them together. This movie was boring, overproduced with special effects, and a bit languid. Despite some heartwarming and funny moments, I was not enchanted by Walter Mitty's secret life.

**