We were rooting for you Ava, we were all rooting for you! It’s pretty much the sentiment after sitting through the visually appealing but overall lacklustre adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time.
Rating: 2/5
The fantasy sci-fi film based on the Madeleine L’Engle book of the same name looks at interdimensional travel with Meg (Storm Reid) in search of her missing father Mr Murry (Chris Pine) after he tether's (interdimensional means of travel) to a distant planet and gets trapped there.
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The main reason the film falls apart is the fact that the fake science is never fleshed out properly and doesn’t make sense within the context of the film. For example, Murry figures out that in order to tether through the universe you have to lock into a specific frequency which it turns out is love. I know, right? Through the power of love, you can traverse through the universe.
Not once is an explanation given as to why love is the key, or how the fake science operates. The characters also make unrealistic decisions throughout the whole film. When Mrs Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) and Mrs Who (Mindy Kaling) take the children on this journey, they jump in, no questions asked.
The visuals are amazing, but we spend too little time on each planet and never get to experience the different destinations. The acting also varies from being watchable to truly atrocious. Storm Reid is okay, Reese Witherspoon is pretty funny, Deric McCabe is cute as a button as Charles Wallace and Oprah plays herself in drag. The worst performance is courtesy of Levi Miller. He has about the amount of charisma of a stale piece of cake and his line delivery caused groans, eye-rolls and moans in the cinema.
Speaking of dialogue, director Ava DuVernay and the writing team needed to be more liberal while adapting the book into a film. The dialogue, much of the time, feels as if it were directly lifted from the book and the story as a whole is very preachy.
While this is a film targeted at children, it treats them like idiots who can’t comprehend sound scientific constructs. It undermines the audience’s intelligence, that being tweens and teens, with most already having a clear understanding of the interwoven nature of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).
DuVernay aims for the stars, but A Wrinkle in Time doesn’t even reach the earth’s stratosphere.
Don’t get me wrong, I love DuVernay and to have a black woman direct a big-budget motion picture is great and should be applauded. She is set to direct a New Gods film at Warner Bros, under the struggling DC umbrella.
I’m glad she is not being lambasted for the failure of A Wrinkle in Time. That said, rather watch Avengers: Infinity War, as it’s worth multiple viewings.