A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
…………………………………………………
A Wrinkle in Time Movie Review
A Wrinkle in Time is a 2018 fantasy film made by Disney and directed by Ava DuVernay. It stars Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey and Chris Pine among others and it’s a rather solid adaptation.
………………………………………………….
“The only thing faster than light is the darkness“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
So this film is based on a book which is pretty much unfilmable and having in mind that they managed to make a pretty solid, passable movie out of it is to be appreciated. I don’t know why most people were quick to hate on it when to me it’s a perfectly respectable children’s entertainment.
Yes, the film at times seemed ridiculous or too campy with some characters and such scenes troubled me quite a bit. The entire middle act is rushed, at times silly and mostly underutilized. But the first act is actually a pretty good character study and the finale is emotional and rather sweet.
Storm Reid absolutely killed it in the role of Meg. I found her acting here truly inspired for such a young girl and she surely has a bright future ahead of her, at least I hope so. She was perfectly cast and she did deliver splendidly. Levi Miller as Calvin is also quite good and the two share a wonderful romance. Deric McCabe as Charles Wallace is also pretty solid and although at times annoying, he was mostly fine in the role and quite well cast in terms of the looks.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
Of the three witches, I found Reese Witherspoon to be the most memorable with her sly and funny remarks. She was a lot of fun. Mindy Kaling was fine and Oprah Winfrey was definitely silly, but this role suits her well and she did deliver. Seeing a giant Oprah surely made this experience rather crazy.
Chris Pine is very good actually and one of the acting highlights here as he excelled in those emotional sequences. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is fine, but less memorable as the mother. I found Zach Galifianakis very annoying and the fact that they put Michael Pena in the villain’s role is honestly ridiculous having in mind that he is a comedic actor and this character should be menacing. He really hurt the villain with his presence as otherwise the design with the glowing red eyes was very cool.
The highlight of A Wrinkle in Time is its theme of self-love and acceptance. Yes, we’ve seen this theme repeated throughout in many Disney films, but here I liked it because it was done in a somewhat more realistic and more nuanced manner. Meg’s truly a terrific character here, so well developed and her insecurities really spoke to me which is why I loved the third act.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
The film is beautifully made with gorgeous special effects and scenery. The green creature looked lovely, the flying scenes are wonderful and also Camazotz is very well portrayed in dark, black colors. The film most definitely looks and also sounds strong.
Ava DuVernay is an overrated director and here she proved she wasn’t great, especially not for this directorial job. She did not direct this film well at all and in the hands of a better director, maybe it would have turned out better. But still this film is rather solid and actually not that worse than the novel which somehow many fail to realize.
A Wrinkle in Time definitely has its silly moments, some ridiculous characters, it’s weakly directed and the entire second act is rather messy in execution. However, the first act is very strong as is the moving third act, the special effects are excellent, the characters are quite well developed, the theme of self-acceptance is well explored and the acting is pretty good with the highlights being Chris Pine and also Storm Reid who showed a lot of promise here with a stupendous performance. It is a flawed, but definitely solid adaptation of a basically unfilmable novel and thus quite underappreciated as it is nowhere near as bad as many would say.
