Based on French high-wire artist Phillipe Petit's covert 1974 1,300-foot-high stroll between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the film admittedly starts off a little slow as we spend most of the first half in France getting acquainted with our key conspirators, but once the action moves to New York for first the Mission: Impossible-like planning and then the eventual feat itself, we're buckled in for a ride of truly epic proportions.
The towers are living, breathing characters, looming larger than life amidst the hovering fog and platinum skyline. We watch breathlessly as the steel walking cable is extended between the seemingly mountainous cavern separating the two chrome-laded behemoths. Then, just as our hearts have quieted, Petit steps off and begins a nearly thirty-minute-long traversal, spinning, lying down, basically floating on air, and we're right there with him amongst the clouds, searching for breath again.
The film really is all about that thirty-minute walk. The always-good Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives an endearing, whimsical performance as Petit and both Ben Kingsley and James Badge Dale provide nice supporting work, but the characters are really never fleshed out and that unfortunately gives the film at times a bit of a hollow, empty quality.
But make no mistake, we're there for the spectacle and The Walk surely provides it a way unlike anything we've ever seen, especially on the big screen and even more so in 3D. Run, don't walk to see it. Grade: B+
