( CNN ) -- It 's easy to understand why comedians like Jim Carrey , Mike Myers , and Sacha Baron Cohen have flirted with adapting James Thurber 's 1939 New Yorker story about a timid man with a vibrant fantasy life . Not only has CGI made it relatively simple to turn Walter Mitty 's daydreams into Technicolor tapestries of digital eye candy , it 's also the kind of emotionally textured role that can be a springboard out of the banana-peel slapstick ghetto . Ben Stiller 's no stranger to such clown-crying-on-the-inside gambits ( see : `` Permanent Midnight '' and `` Greenberg '' ) . But his new film , `` The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , '' despite all of its visual razzle-dazzle , never locates the beating heart of its hero . Stiller , who also directed , plays Mitty as an absentminded , socially awkward nebbish who works in the photo department at LIFE magazine . The irony , of course , is that even though he works at a place called LIFE , he has n't lived . Instead , he retreats into his head and imagines himself a dashing mountain climber or a hot-blooded Casanova . Stiller and screenwriter Steven Conrad have given Thurber 's story a 21st-century twist by setting the film in our era of corporate downsizing . LIFE is about to cease publishing , and for its final cover the editors have chosen a shot from their globe-trotting photojournalist star , Sean O'Connell ( Sean Penn ) . Then Mitty misplaces the negative . And with the encouragement of a co-worker he 's sweet on ( Kristen Wiig ) , he embarks on a quest to find O'Connell , leading him to Greenland and the Himalayas . As Stiller 's Mitty crisscrosses the planet , he slowly transforms into the action hero he 's always been in his fantasies . While stunning sequences show him skate-boarding away from an erupting volcano and fighting off a great white shark , the character never becomes more than a fuzzy conceit . At the risk of psycho-analyzing a film that 's already too deep inside its own head , Stiller seems to lack the confidence as a dramatic actor to fully commit to the emotional potential of his story . Too often he aims at our funny bones when he should be targeting our heartstrings . In the end , Walter Mitty is a film about acting out our dreams . But Stiller never quite shows us the soul of his dreamer . B- . See the original story at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
Ben Stiller plays the title character in `` The Secret Life of Walter Mitty '' a film that is as much about his own life and career as it is about the lives of others. While there are some visually stunning sequences , the film never quite comes to life .