Everyone who’s seen Man On Wire knows that Philippe Petit did a tightrope walk between the World Trade Center Towers in 1974. What Robert Zemeckis’s movie The Walk presupposes is, what if Petit was all handsome like Joseph Gordon-Levitt?
That’s about all you need to know about The Walk, other than that it’s going to be in 3D, opens this October, and that JGL does a rrrrighteous FRONCHE accent for zee whole moofie, ho ho ho. Charlotte Le Bon plays Petit’s girlfriend, whom she reportedly met when a paint brush fell on her back and he mistook her for a sexy skunk. I kid, I kid, that was just a little Pepé Le Pew joke, you see.
Honestly, I don’t quite understand the point of having JGL do a cover song version of Man on Wire when you can so easily watch the real thing. I guess it’s for people who get really bored without old school story tropes like a wise old man (Ben Kingsley), a last-minute complication (the rope almost snaps!), and are you kidding me, calculations drawn on a window.
You know, just in case the wine glass diagram didn’t get the point across:
Of course he uses wine. They made him so stereotypically French I’m surprised he didn’t use escargot for the cops and a thin cigarette for the balance beam.
Anyway, this looks cheesier than your mom’s thighs, but in 3D IMAX it could be cool. And hey, whatever tears Robert Zemeckis away from motion capture is a net positive.