Rating of
3/4
The Walk review
Matthew Brady - wrote on 10/11/15
Philippe Petit: "People always ask me "why do you risk death"? For me, this is life".
The Walk is based on a true story of Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist, and his group of friends, who staged an unauthorized attempt to cross the World Trade Center Twin Towers in 1974.
Robert Zemeckis is very well known now for using groundbreaking technology as a style of film making. It make's every scene in he's films look absolutely jaw dropping and visually stunning. That's why Robert Zeneckis always wanted to make this movie so badly, so he can take that stunning visual style that he has and put it to the big screen. Zemeckis has said in an interview that "His Entire Career Has Been Preparation for The Walk", so that right there shows Zeneckis strong interest on the story and how he can easily adapted a story like this into a film. We already know he can do it, I mean this is the same director who made Forrest Gump for crying out loud, so him failing seems impossible at this point. But I needed to see the film myself to judge and while knowing the film has positive reviews, I need to judge myself.
After seeing "The Walk", I can safely say that Zemeckis nailed it once again as this movie was great.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a solid job playing Philippe Petit. Gordon-Levitt really got into his character, because he actually learned wire walking and how to do it correctly by Philippe Petit himself. I know a lot of people have been talking about Joseph Gordon-Levitt french accent in the movie and how out of place it can be, and yes I do admit it did take me off guard a bit, but I got use to it after awhile. But here's the thing; Philippe Petit doesn't have an normal french accent and I think Gordon-Levitt did a great job emulating that. I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt did the best performance he could have done and I got to give him credit for that and I'm standing by that.
Robert Zemeckis directed this movie and as I said before; Zemeckis knows how to push the boundaries of CGI technology with the movie he made such as: Back to the Future, Who framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump. And Zemeckis once again did an excellent job telling an interesting story and the use of CGI bleeding in perfectly with the environment that the movie is set in. Robert Zemeckis is the man for the job when it comes to film making like this and he did such an amazing job directing this movie. Nicely done Zemeckis.
The second act of the movie where he starts to walk across the wire between the twin towers was absolutely amazing and also terrifying, because I have this thing with heights and I can go vertigo easily. I sawed the movie in IMAX 3D and my god the 3D in this movie worked so incredibly well that I literally felt like I was up there with Gordon-Levitt. My hands were sweating, my heart was pumping and the sequence itself was truly spectacular.
The visual effect's in this movie are so perfectly executed and so beautiful to look at. I would go this far and call it flawless CGI as it's truly stunning.
Now for the problems: The first half of the movie felt a little underwhelming and a bit slow for me. It felt a bit dragged out with some of the scenes and it made the pasting seem a little slow.
Overall The Walk may have a slow first half, but the second act of the film is so perfectly executed and it's absolutely worth seeing in IMAX. The acting is great, the directing is fantastic, the visual effect's are stunning and the 3D is worth the price of a ticket.
