If you’re like us, most of the movies you see are via Netflix or HBO. So when you actually do venture out to a theater–and steel yourself for the uber loud, chase-scene dominant trailers sure to proceed the movie you’re actually there to see–it has to be good. “The Walk,” the story of Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between New York’s World Trade Center Twin Towers, qualifies. It’s hardly pedestrian. Indeed, the concluding minutes have been accurately described as “armrest-clutching.”
It’s fun, it’s 3-D, it’s edgy (literally), it’s poignant–and you can bring other members of the family along. The worst language–and it’s not that bad–is in French, and the subtitles even clean that up. There’s nothing gratuitous; the vertiginous scenes are necessary.
With a deft parlay of digital effects and models, appropriate homage is given to the iconic, 110-story Towers. We all know the back story. The movie ends the way it should.