The Walk (2015)

The basic story of The Walk is this: a French street performer becomes obsessed with hanging a high wire between the two Twin Towers and walking on it. He flies to New York, recruits a few people to help him, and after weeks of of planning, is ready to perform an impossible stunt that will be remembered forever. The script is very well written and the story comes across very nicely to the viewer. It focuses on all the right moments for the right amount of time, which means the pacing is generally good. My only problem arises in the beginning as I felt it was a little rushed. Character development is also not the finest, but it is enough to make the viewer care about the characters. Other than that the story was told in a very captivating way that left viewer on the edge of their seat.

The Walk is a drama/thriller with a spice of romance and comedy. Because it is based on a true story, it makes this movie even cooler and much more intense! This is also an educational movie because I didn't know much about high-wire artists until this movie. I learned that there is a lot of science and math about how the wire is secured to provide safety for the walker.


My favorite character is Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) because he is just flat-out amazing and super believable! My favorite scene is when Philippe is facing his biggest dream of tightrope walking between the twin towers. They were 140 feet apart and 110 stories high! This scene is so realistic and exhilarating that my palms were sweaty and other audience members were squirming in their seats. Philippe says that high-wire artists are never supposed to look down when tightrope walking. Does he heed his own advice?

The acting is all-around excellent, with Mr. Gordon-Levitt declaiming in French quite competently. Needless to say, the CGI and the 3D effects are state of the art. The recreation of NYC is almost perfect. Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a solid job playing Philippe Petit. Gordon- Levitt really got into his character, because he actually learned wire walking and how to do it correctly by Philippe Petit himself.

Robert Zemeckis is a great storyteller and he completely sucked me in; I felt like I was watching the team try to pull off the "artistic con of the century." The movie has heart, it made me care about Philippe Petit and his striving for the impossible. I highly recommend seeing it in IMAX as the visuals are spectacular and seriously will make sit on the edge of your seat as they give you first person shots of what Petit would be seeing.