Gefangene der Zeit

A Wrinkle in Time - where do I start? The book, in itself, is one of the most fabulous, imaginative, fantastical stories ever penned. Madeleine L'Engle is a writing genius. The book opened up whole new worlds for me, and taught me (in the forth grade) that it was all right to have imaginings beyond anything ever heard of. Now, close to graduation, I watched this, excited, but prepared to be disappointed. I rarely was. This was a fine production - the child actors quite good, I thought - no gorgeous child actors were cast, and I noticed no huge personality changes. Meg doesn't wear spectacles, and there are other similar changes. The end is a bit altered, but it didn't bother me too much. This is a good adaptaion, but not for L'Engleites. You need to be flexible - one form is a novel, one is a film. A book can be directed toward a small group of people, but a film has to be marketable to everyone. See it if you like fantasy and enjoy Madeleines books.

The book is so good that at least the opening of this made-for-tv movie will move you, but then, as it diverges more and more from the book, taking out all the religion and love and mathematics and putting in cotton candy cliches, it becomes boring. Still, from comments I've heard, people who have not read the book tend to like it, and if it leads even on child to read A Wrinkle in Time, it will have served its purpose. The most embarrassing change is to make the Happy Medium a clone of Mary Poppins' Uncle Albert (I love to Laugh). Nothing is quite so squirm inducing as characters on the screen laughing hilariously at things that are totally unfunny.

As adaptions go, this movie is adequate. It captures much of the spirit of the original book, and it makes good use of some excellent casting (the three child regulars are exceptional, especially Katie Stuart). Unfortunately, things are bogged down by too much uplifting music, and the modifications to the ending will have L'Engle purists fuming. You can see the evil hand of Disney in the final speech to the people of Camazotz.

Not an actively bad movie, but it's just there. Personally, I'd rather read the book.

But I will keep my eye out for the next project Ms. Stuart is involved in.

I too am a big fan of Madeline L'Engle and especially the Murry family time-travel series; so I was both excited and trepidatious to see a film version of this well-known first book in the series, especially since it was produced by Disney (I love Disney, but I don't always love their adaptations of stories that were perfectly fine to me to begin with).

However, I rented it and was mostly pleased -- although Meg, Calvin & Charles didn't exactly fit my picture of them in my head (based on L'Engle's descriptions in the book) the acting was great and they got the "feel" of the characters mostly right (I missed the "fierceness" of Meg from the book and the glasses & braces, but she was still very well portrayed). The scenes from Camazotz are chilling, and gave me the same creepy feeling as I get when I read the book. And the plot stayed generally around the same place as the book, most of the time; it didn't veer as far as Disney's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" did. Allison Elliot is a great actress (loved her in "The Spitfire Grill") so it was nice to see her as Mrs. Who, pointy hat or not. Most of the scenery really helped me feel a part of the story; as for the look of the characters, I can be open-minded and accept that, like Aunt Beast says, "it's not how things look, but how they are."

However, I just don't understand some of the little changes they made that seem completely unnecessary and really annoyed me as a fan of the books. The biggest one is WHY did they change the names of the Murry parents? I've grown to feel almost a part of this family, so imagine my shock when dedicated father Alex and loving mother Kate suddenly became "Jack" and "Dana"! I'd love to know the reason for this, because it seems pointless. It totally ruined the first 20 minutes of the film for me, because I kept ranting about it until my husband began rolling his eyes. And it didn't make sense to change the breed of Fort (the dog) either; as someone else said, "how hard was it to find a black Lab?" Bigger changes, like replacing most of IT's role with The Man With Red Eyes, make more sense (IT was creepy enough in the book, I did NOT want to see IT on the screen!) but the aforementioned minor character changes ticked me off. I'd love to hear someone from Disney explain the choices they made.

I recommend the film to fans of the book and non-fans alike; but be warned if you cherish the book as much as I do, and try to separate the film from the book and enjoy it for what it is, not what it should be.

My sister and I were ecstatic when we found out that they were finally playing this. We took time out of our busy finals week to sit down and watch the whole thing. And while it kept us entertained for the whole 3 hours, there were a lot of times we were like "Was that in the book? Where are they getting this stuff?"

So I guess my advise is, if you're a book purist, try to forget this is based on it and enjoy it for the cute fluff piece it is. The book is a whole different (and better) experience.

On to the movie. I think Gregory Smith was good as Calvin (even though he isn't a redhead) and the little kid was good too. Meg was a little forced I thought. Maybe it's the inexperience of the actress, but she didn't feel like the stubborn but warm Meg of the books.

All in all, it was a pleasant experience.