The Walk, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, recreates 1970s Twin Towers high-wire feat

In 1974, Philippe Petit stood on a steel cable the width of a nickel, strung 110 storeys in the sky. The World Trade Center Towers, completed in Manhattan just a few years prior, called to him.

The Walk is the a very American treatment of this uniquely European story: a slavish recreation of wire walker Petit's amazing feat that features a cast of largely U.S. actors trying to be as French as possible. It's a ridiculous retelling inspired by an original act of madness.  

The brilliance of James Marsh's earlier documentary Man on Wire, which preceded this feature-length, 3D, mega-sized adaptation, was the way it captured Petit's personality. A combination of athlete, artist and prankster, he was inspired by the impossible. In the doc, Petit describes being drawn to those freshly built structures. Marsh left room for wonder and the poetry of this man who danced on a wire.

In the new movie from director Robert Zemeckis, however, Petit is squished into the mold of a typical protagonist.

We get an origin story, complete with a plucky love interest and Ben Kingley improbably cast as Petit's Czech mentor. Then there's Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit: with Beatles mop-top hair, a Modish turtleneck and Gallic accent.

He begins the film by addressing us while strolling around the Statue of Liberty's torch, the Twin Towers standing proudly behind him. It's easy to understand the instinct of co-screenwriters Zemeckis and Christopher Browe: in Man on Wire, Petit spoke directly to the camera, seducing viewers with the details of his mad plan.  

Stealing baguettes while riding a unicycle down the streets of Paris, he seems more an elaborate simulation than flesh and blood.- Eli Glasner

But in the context of this elaborate recreation, Petit feels like a catalogue of cliches. Stealing baguettes while riding a unicycle down the streets of Paris, he seems more an elaborate simulation than flesh and blood. It's not that Petit didn't do these things, but lacking any true insight into what drove him to risk his life for his art, all we're left with is Gordon-Levitt straining to step into his shoes. 

Petit's tale is one of those rare cases where life is stranger than fiction. Whereas the doc presents him as both compelling and clownish, in this dramatisation all the eccentricity feels fake.

For the first two-thirds of the film, The Walk is more like The Slog. Much of it is slow, plodding and overly sentimental, filled with manufactured drama to kill time before Petit steps into the void. But once he does take that first step, The Walk becomes a thrilling experience.

To recreate one of the biggest stunts of our time, Zemeckis has performed a cinematic equivalent. Depicted in IMAX 3D, Petite's journey isn't just effective, it's inescapable.

At the screening I attended, I heard a chorus of gasps as Gordon-Levitt's Petit edged onto the slender cable for the first time. For a moment, Zemeckis delivered something artful: a cloud bank rolls in, making it appear as it as if Petit is walking on a wire to nowhere. Then, the mist clears and a sickening drop looms. The opposite tower recedes and Manhattan lays splayed out far below.

Note: I don't enjoys heights and The Walk was so immersive that I was having flashbacks hours later. At a screening in New York, there were reports of audience members being overcome by vertigo and nausea. There was nothing that dramatic in Toronto, but the lure of such an extreme experience may prove irresistible to some.  

Audiences haven't quite embraced the 3D format, but The Walk could be the start of a troubling new trend: a cinematic carnival ride where storytelling takes a back seat to sensation.  

Though a failure as a film, The Walk works as a ride. Three out of five stars.