I'm happier than anyone that Robert Zemeckis has chose to stop making movies about dead-eyed monsters who love Christmas and returned to the realms of reality. But couldn't he have kept up with what the rest of the cinematic world was doing while he was off mo-capping the talent out of good actors in the name of revolution so that when he returned he could offer something new? Yes, it's that issue. The one everyone raised an eyebrow out when they first heard of the project, got worried when they saw the trailer and, ultimately, hangs over The Walk more than alcoholism did over Flight. Back in 2008, when Zemeckis was finishing off his offensively-unfaithful A Christmas Carol, James Marsh's incredible, Oscar-winning documentary Man On Wire, which likewise tells the story of Petit's daring walk, was released. And here we are only seven years later watching the big-budget, effects-heavy version. Now there's nothing inherently wrong taking a previously done idea and providing a new spin on it. Next year sees the second Batman and third Spider-Man since 2000 and people are pretty amped for those, while the current (and successful, I might add) incarnations of Star Trek and Bond thrive off reimagining old ideas. Heck, David Fincher's in on the act, classily redoing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and set to tackle Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train in the not-too-distant future. But the key is to actually do something new or different. The Walk is neither. In fact, it feels like it's been purposely made to transfer the artistic success of Marsh's film into cash, as if documentaries are the equivalent of foreign or old films and need to be made as appealing to a mass audience as possible. Seriously, the similarities are as blatant as their are massive. The Walk is adapted from the same book as Man On Wire (Petit's To Reach The Clouds), tackles the same thematics behind the tightroping antics (a man driven by selflessly introverted goals strives to complete his art in an event that encapsulates the iconography of the Towers) and follows the same broad structure. We even have Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a French accent (because you can't get an IMAX budget with a non-Anglo-speaking actor) narrate the whole movie as a glorified talking head (where he's green-screened on top of the Statue of Liberty with the World Trade Center perpetually in the background, just in case you forget what the point of the film is). It's in making the Man On Wire comparison that one of the biggest issues with The Walk becomes clear. For his film, Marsh chose outright to avoid anything that came close to even alluding to 9/11 attacks, letting Petit's act speak for itself. Zemeckis initially seems to be following the same tact (because of course), yet the film's pure and constant obsession over the World Trade Center when it simply doesn't fit and lingering shots near the end of them lit up at night (complete with a character claiming it was Philippe alone who made people fall in love with them) are far too myth-baiting to not be intended to stir up deep-seated emotions. The Walk is a poor movie as it is, offering up none of the wonder of the concept, but when you put it alongside Man On Wire it becomes something else. It becomes pointless. The Walk is available in IMAX now and will open in all cinemas on 8th October.
