A Wrinkle in Time

Starring: Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Pena, David Oyelowo
Directed by: Ava DuVernay
Rating: PG
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A young girl (Storm Reid) embarks on a dangerous journey through space and time to search for her missing father.

Review:

Tim: I loved Madeleine L'Engle's novel as a kid. To this day, it's one of the more influential books I've read. I've read the book several times. So, I was looking forward to Disney's adaptation. It helped that early reviews were positive and it was deemed a movie that showed strong female characters and was directed by a woman. Everything was looking good. Here's the problem, though. A Wrinkle in Time is a fairly lackluster movie. And that has nothing to do with any changes to the story or the characters. I was totally fine with that. The problem is that Ava DuVernay directs a disappointing movie.

I actually thought that some of the changes were for the best and others were just fine. I didn't hear a lot of controversy over Meg's ethnicity, which was good. It had no bearing on the story. I was also fine with the script jettisoning the younger brothers. None of my complaints have anything to do with the movie not being faithful to the book. My complaints are that the movie isn't very good. That's the biggest complaint. The movie over-relies on visual effects (something that so many Disney movies deserve criticism for). The visual effects are occasionally beautiful, but often look fake. I would have preferred slightly more grounded effects. The story is interesting, but DuVernay never captures the intensity of the book. Everything feels watered down and Disney safe. I don't think this was an intentional departure, I think DuVernay just got caught up in the visuals and the message and forgot to tell the most powerful story she could tell. The film doesn't feel very epic, which is shocking considering the characters travel across the universe. That was disappointing.

The other big complaint I have is that the actors didn't do a very good job. I know Storm Reid got some credit for her strong character, but I'm not sure if anyone recognized that she's not that great of an actress. DuVernay again deserves some criticism here, because directors need to coax great performances out of their child stars. Reid has her moments, but as a whole, her performance left too much to be desired. Reid was wonderful, though, compared to the awful performance by Deric McCabe. I hate to be so critical of young performers, but again, DuVernay needed to do a better job with him. Charles Wallace is a weird kid, sure. But McCabe, although seemingly wise beyond his years never captures the "good" weird aspects of the character. He was endearing despite his weirdness. Too much of his performance feels like rote memorization. His performance never works- it's certainly weird, but all the wrong kinds. I'm really not sure what happened in this film, because it felt like Mindy Kaling's performance was forced and Reese Witherspoon occasionally had some bad moments, too. Oprah Winfrey felt like her whole performance was in front of a green screen without the other actors there (I have no idea if this is true, it's how it came across, though). It's been a while since I've seen a performance that felt as disconnected as Winfrey's did. Chris Pine was fine, although he has a minor part. Levi Miller was okay, but not great. Gugu Mbatha-Raw was actually quite strong, giving one of the better performances of the film. Zach Galifianakis was okay, although a little over-the-top. Michael Pena did a good job embracing the odder aspects of his character. As a whole, the cast looks terrific on paper, but DuVernay strangely failed all the main characters. Most of those performances are bad.

I wanted to like this movie, but it's surprisingly bland and forgettable. It feels exactly like dozens of other PG Disney movies. The characters weren't compelling enough and the story never pulled us in and gave us a real sense of danger. That's a shocking failure, considering It (or The It, I suppose) is seriously one of the craziest menaces imaginable). There's too many absurd plot holes. The one that was most glaring to me was when Mrs. Whatsit transforms into that plant creature and flies the children around- when that scene is resolved after Calvin (I think?) falls, they are suddenly back where they started. It was just such a stupidly lazy scene.

As much as I hoped A Wrinkle in Time would have worked, the film is a bitter disappointment. The over reliance on CGI and the unfortunate script resulted in a movie that never gets above okay. I'm kind of glad this was a box office disappointment- I hope Disney learns something from this mistake.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Tomorrowland, Pete's Dragon, The Jungle Book