Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) never does anything exciting—the only adventures he has are in his daydreams. He has worked for LIFE Magazine for over 16 years, in the dark basement of the negatives department. About a month prior a new employee Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig) joined the company, and immediately caught Walter’s eye. However, too afraid to to start up an actual relationship in person, he decides to try to poke her via eHarmony, to which he gets no response. Meanwhile, Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott), the obnoxious new head of the magazine, announces that they will be doing their final print issue, and that LIFE will be going digital-only. Famous photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) had sent Walter the quintessential photo for the magazine’s final cover, but Walter has somehow lost the negative. With Hendricks constantly hounding him to see the negative, Walter decides to go on a journey across the globe to look for O’Connell or clues as to the subject of the missing photo, an in the process, Walter learns to let life in.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is an uplifting adventure with lots of humor. Walter often zones out into these totally ridiculous and absurd daydreams that are both action-packed and humerous—some of these include him being a rugged, foreign mountain climber, an epic superhero fight with his boss in the city streets, and him having Benjamin Button disease. While these daydream scenes are great and look amazing, I found that they sometimes broke the pace of the film. However, the daydreams are just a small part of the overall story. The movie really centers on the character of Walter Mitty and how he learns to stop living in a dream world and start living in the real world, enjoying every moment of life.

The cast is wonderful. Ben Stiller makes Walter a charming and relatable character that you really root for. Kristen Wiig plays the slightly-dorky character she’s so good at, and has great chemistry with Stiller. Adam Scott is great as the annoying, fake, know-it-all boss, and Shirley MacLaine and Kathryn Hahn bring a lot of humor to the roles of Walter’s mother and sister. One of the highlights of the film for me was Patton Oswalt, whom I always enjoy. Oswalt plays Todd the eHarmony employee who is constantly checking in with Walter for updates to his dating profile. The relationship between Mitty and Todd is hilarious and so much fun.

The Blu-ray looks and sounds amazing. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a beautiful-looking and beautifully-shot film. It starts off with a rather bland color palette and motionless camera shots. The only time we see liveliness and color is when Walter zones out into his dream world. However, as Walter progresses in his journey, these two worlds blend into one, and the cinematography helps to tell this story. This is all beautifully-captured on this Blu-ray release. The soundtrack successfully delivers the film’s beautiful score and dialogue, and transports the viewer into the worlds of Mitty’s daydreams and real-life adventures.

As for bonus features, the Blu-ray contains almost 40 minutes of great behind-the-scenes featurettes and interviews with the cast and creators of the film, over 15 minutes of deleted/extended/alternate scenes, a music video and a production photo gallery. If I had one complaint, it’s that I wish they had provided a Play All option for the Behind The Scenes material as it gets a bit tedious clicking on each 2-4 minute featurette.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a fun, beautiful, uplifiting film that’s definitely worth checking out.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:54:24)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.40:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, English Descriptive Audio 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Russian DTS 5.1, Czech Dolby Digital 5.1, Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1, Polish Dolby Digital 5.1, Turkish Dolby Digital 5.1, Ukranian Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Turkish, Ukranian

DVD:

• 480p / Widescreen 2.40:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, English Descriptive Audio 5.1, Spanish Surround Dolby Digital 2.0, French Surround Dolby Digital 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 4/15/2017):

• DigitalHD Copy redeemable via iTunes, Flixster (UltraViolet), Google Play or Vudu (UltraViolet)

Extras (Not all available on DVD):

• Deleted, Extended and Alternate Scenes
  • Deleted Scenes (7:30)
    Five entertaining deleted scenes, including a slightly alternate opening sequence, some additional fun fantasy sequences that were likely cut for pacing, and a short scene between Walter and his sister. Play All or select from “Morning Routine”, “Young Odessa Fantasy”, “Jester Fantasy”, “Manfree Fantasy” and “Impound Lot”.
  • Extended Scenes: (4:33)
    Extended cuts of two of the film’s amusing fantasy sequences. Play All or select between “Extended Arctic Fantasy” and “Christmas Walk”.
  • Alternate Scenes (3:42)
    A pair of slightly different scenes from the film. Play All or select between “Fly To Greenland Alternate Music” and “Severance Package”.

• Behind The Scenes
  • The History of Walter Mitty (3:39)
    Producers John Goldwyn, Ben Stiller, and Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., star Patton Oswalt and writer Steve Conrad discuss the character of Walter Mitty from James Thurber’s original short story, the 1947 film starring Danny Kaye, and the challenges of remaking the story set in a contemporary world.
  • The Look of Life* (5:01)
    A look behind the scenes with director/producer/star Ben Stiller, writer Steve Conrad, co-producer/production designer Jeff Mann as they discuss setting the film at LIFE Magazine, and how the look and feel of the film progresses over the course of Walter’s journey.
  • That’s A Shark! (5:57)
    This featurette takes a look at the filming of many of the exciting stunt sequences on-location in Iceland. Includes interviews with Ben Stiller, producer John Goldwyn, stunt double Greg Fitzpatrick, and actor Adam Scott.
  • The Music of Walter Mitty* (4:01)
    A discussion of the progression of the music throughout the film, and a look at the orchestra and artists in the recording studio. Includes interviews with Ben Stiller, composer Theodore Shapiro, and recording artist José González.
  • Icelandic Adventure (3:26)
    The creators discuss shooting the film in Iceland. Includes lots of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with co-producer/production designer Jeff Mann, and producers John Goldwyn, Stuart Cornfeld and Ben Stiller.
  • Nordic Casting (3:51)
    Casting director Rachel Tenner introduces the cast she found abroad. Includes audition footage and a behind-the-scenes look at the actors rehearsing and filming their scenes.
  • Titles of Walter Mitty (2:49)
    Title designer Kyle Cooper talks about finding the motivation for the opening title sequence, and shows some of the original ideas that were ultimately dropped.
  • Sights and Sounds of Production
    Raw behind-the-scenes footage of the cast and stunt crew rehearsing and filming scenes.
    • “Skateboarding Through Iceland”* (2:23)
    • “Ted-Walter Fight” (2:48)
  • Pre-Viz (4:15)
    “Ted-Walter Fight Pre-Viz Early Version” – A look at the Ted-Walter fight scene using a mix of story-board animation and semi-rough 3D animation, backed by a soundtrack and sound effects.

• Gallery: Reference Photography* (1:05)
  Gallery of production photos. Manually advance through the photographs using your remote, or have them auto-advance every five seconds.
• Music Video: “Stay Alive” by José González (4:22)
  Music Video for the title song of the film that takes the form of “The Secret Life of José González” in which the artist takes on a early-in-the-film Walter Mitty-like persona.
• Theatrical Trailer (1:55)

Final Thoughts:

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is beautiful looking film with amazing production design. The film is fun, adventurous and uplifting, with a talented cast. The Blu-ray presentation looks and sounds great, and the disc contains a host of interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes. This Blu-ray is definitely worth checking out.