Major let down.

Rating: 2/10 (13 January 2014)

To me, the film started off slow. Roughly ten minutes of silence while BS decided whether to press a 'wink' button or not.. instantly I took a dislike to it but thought I might as well let it slip.
There's the odd bit of humour throughout the film but the majority of it doesn't fit with me any more. I've noticed a trend happen in films where they try and make a 'douchebag' guy the 'funny one' through little words and phrases he says that only fails because, in my opinion, that section of comedy has passed. "What's our company's phrase?", "LIFE.. I'm lovin it?", "No, that's McDonald's." ..are you serious? THIS is meant to be funny!? Also, I know the boss is an arrogant dick and everything but it's a little far- fetched when he doesn't know his own catchphrase, I mean, come on? That's really testing the audiences stupidity, who would believe that!?
Nothing much is 'quotable' throughout the film, the characters are based loosely on every average character you find in most 'comedies' nowadays (I'm thinking 40 y/o Virgin, Bruce Almighty, Johnny English..). There's a hot woman, who, from the off point, you just know he's gonna get with her by the end.. the 'action' was well-produced but completely unnecessary. The 'zoning out' that Walter Mitty does gets repetitive and boring.. yeah, it was sorta funny at first, but after the 6th-7th time we just ended up thinking "for god's sake, another one!?" and it starts to get predictable. Also, with that in mind.. what the hell was with that Benjamin Button reference? You can tell it was meant to be funny but it was just.. so awful. "Just stay here baby.. I mean 'baby' as in, my partner, not baby because you look like a weird baby thing" then he replies with a weird (what I can only assume is the sound of his last breath and him dying) "ouguhhhhhhhh" ..come on, who wrote this script!?
Speaking of predictability, I felt like every twenty minutes before something happened, I was turning to my girlfriend and saying 'this is gonna happen now..', 'watch this happen..', 'what's the bet this happens..' and no word of a lie, I must've done it about 7 or 8 times and was right every time. It actually got to the point right near the end where I said "Can I just tell you what's gonna happen so we can go?".. she just laughed and if it hadn't have been from the embarrassment of walking out of a cinema before the film finished, she probably would've said yes. (P.s. I told her anyway and lo-and- behold, I predicted right.)
I think what makes this film achieve such a good amount of positive reviews (and, I gotta say, for this reason and this reason alone, I agree) is the scenery and genuine 'adventure' that we follow with him. I was watching an interview with BS and he said the places we see are the places he actually went to, he actually went to Iceland, he actually went to Greenland, he actually went hiking up a mountain.. and for these reasons, I can see why it would appear to be a decent film to watch but unfortunately, that's solely what the film seems to have promoted itself on and it takes a good 40 mins to an hour to get there (probably longer) and even then, I feel like I'm just watching the trailer all over again.
That aside, I wouldn't recommend it. The comedy is cheap, the characters are typically average of a film and are clear exaggerations of real-life people (douchebag boss, overweight best friend that makes the odd 'funny' remark, the OTT ridiculously-costumed sister character, the 'girl' that's too hot for her age and position and generally too good to be - but he gets her anyway), the story is a bit crap.. he gets fired, yet he still travels around the world to find a small picture that was on his person the whole time? Come on!
Tbh, rounding off, the only reason we stayed til the end (other than embarrassment if we had left) was to see what the picture was.. I mean, after sitting there for what felt like 5 hours, we might as well stay for what the story was all about, eh?
Summing up, my advice? Save your money.