A Wrinkle in Time

Wow, I am so disappointed in Disney right now. I was expecting so much from this, but sadly it was absolutely terrible! The movie and acting was so cheesy and cliché, I couldn't help but cringe throughout the movie. Chris Pine deserves a much better role than this, especially after his great performance in Wonder Woman. I mean, how could Disney release this kind of rubbish? Did they even watch it before they release it? Did the director even try? 'Cool' visual effects that made the film look like a compilation of advertisements DOES NOT equal to a good movie! Wow.

By the time "Wrinkle" reached its climactic scenes, where the stakes are highest and the resolution hangs in the balance, it carried so much forward momentum that I had to keep waking myself up so I wouldn't snore and bother the other theater patrons.

Yeah...it was like that.

Look, I'll admit: I've never read the book (shame on me, I guess, as a lifelong lover of SF and general metaphysical weirdness), so I can't judge DuVernay's "A Wrinkle In Time" as an adaptation of L'Engle's literary favorite. But I CAN measure it as a film that wants to tell a story, and on that scale...um...

...

Uy. Never is there a real sense of conflict with which to engage: the tone and mood are so lovey-dovey, from stem to stern, that the film never feels like it's progressing in any meaningful way. The galaxy-gobbling threat doesn't, and isn't. Good performers are wasted on one-note characters (be they whimsical space-nymphs or oh-so-precious baby geniuses) in puzzling costumes and -- were those hairdos? I think they were hairdos. I mean, they were where hair is supposed to be. Expensive FX fill the screen in service to a plot that *drifts* through its paces instead of *advancing*. If there was variance in the musical score, I missed it (but I think I didn't, because I think there wasn't). Michael Peña is asked to leave his "Ant-Man" charm at home and put on a goofy mustache and some red contacts for like a few minutes, and Captain Kirk (the new one, anyway) has a beard and is interesting, but doesn't really do anything and OPE what nope I'm awake not snoring sorry no.

This is going to be someone's favorite movie, and that's a beautiful thing; art needn't be categorically *good* to be *effective*, after all, and I love the hell out of "Xanadu", so I should know. But a film that wants to tell a story should be equipped to tell a story, and if it can't do that, then...it's doing something else, I dunno, I'm...

...

...huh? No, no, I was just...just resting my eyes. It's nice, maybe you should do the same.

I ignored the bad reviews and went anyway. Disappointing is probably an understatement. This movie is a disaster. Not only is the acting incredibly awful, especially from some otherwise accomplished cast members, but the original storyline was all but abandoned. I read the book several times, and even I was confused what was going on in this film. There was no explanation for any of the concepts, character development was nonexistent, special effects were plentiful but meaningless. The most fascinating parts of the book were eliminated, or only presented so quickly that it was difficult to understand why they were happening and how they related to the story. This movie could have been SO great - there was incredible potential here, and Disney and the director literally wasted it all.

Good: Some of the messages and morals of the story are heartfelt for its intended audience of children. The saving grace is Chris Pine. Even though he had a small role, he fit the role perfectly and was not so excessive. The color scheme is very bright and colorful, which makes the movie somewhat interesting, even with the subpar acting and plot.....

Bad: The acting all around is either subar from the cast or over the top from Mindy Kaling and Zach Galifianakis that it comes out unnatural. Even with a good cast consisting of Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, they did not add much to the movie's benefit. Disney spent so much money on its adult characters that they forgot to hire good child actors/actresses for the child cast members are not even on par with some of the amazing child stars from "Stranger Things," "It," or "Jungle Book."

Overall: The movie is mainly geared towards elementary and middle school children with some adult aspects, yet the movie is childish and not up to Disney's standard. Disney should be embarrassed to have produced such a movie with big Hollywood names and have it bomb. The movie falls flat and lacks humor leading to a failure for Disney. Even though this movie is supposed to be a big statement towards diversity with a colored director helming a $100 million budget project, the movie does not do justice.

2/5

This is probably the worst Disney movie I've ever seen. It's also probably the worst movie I've seen this year. The movie for starters is flat out BORING. The majority of the film is people standing around talking, and they aren't talking about anything interesting or that advances the plot in most cases. There's some beautiful imagery here, but then there's also too much green screen and CGI going on that it just loses it's luster. What is the deal with this director also? There were probably 70+ shots inches away from each actors face. It didn't look pretty and was extremely distracting to me. Somehow this director had all of these great actors and couldn't even get anything out of the majority of them. Chris Pine was about the only person that did a good job here. I would not recommend this to anyone. It's unbelievable that this is a film with a budget over $100 million. They should have never even released this travesty.