Mucking around with cinematic adaptations of the precious prose from audiences' childhoods is somewhat of a minefield - for every Lord of the Rings triumph, there's an insulting travesty such as ... well... The Hobbit. Tragically, there's much more than a whiff of the latter in Disney's big-budget shot at breathing life into author Madeleine L'Engle's metaphysical whimsy. Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time is a bloated but sweet movie you desperately want to like, gosh darn it. Sadly, it's too unsalvageable to even defend as harmless children's entertainment - so cataclysmically off-base that, rather than rescue it from Camazotz, you'd probably go out of your way to maroon it there, and save everyone from the heartbreak of its existence.
L'Engle's novel had a gentle otherworldliness in its whimsy, but the only thing 'otherworldly' in Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell's screenplay is that it reads like an extraterrestrial inhabitant clumsily trying to piece together how humans verbally communicate. The film drips with more grotesquely stale exposition than dialogue, with the unappetizing side order of characters reacting to the increasingly fantastic happenstances as if shot with tranquilizer darts, dopily shuffling from point to point without ever seemingly registering an emotional response. Fall into an immediate conversation about feelings with a boy you've never met? Already outlandish for a teenager. Travel across the universe with a passive-aggressive space-witch who eventually takes the form of a flying cabbage? Oh. Sure. Come face-to-face with the root of all unhappiness and evil in all multiverses? Meh. It almost defies belief that the director of the flooring, poignant Selma is capable of producing a film so shallow and emotionally stilted.
It would normally play as charming to have a children's film bounce with the same episodic stream-of-consciousness of a child's storytelling, but DuVernay is never fully able to corral the playful lilt of L'Engle's gossamer, episodic plot. Instead, the film lurches from blandly dazzling planet to confusedly extraneous supporting character with nauseating, plodding incoherence. Loopy yogi Zach Galifianakis and charmingly threatening Michael Peña do their best to raise laughs with their awkwardly out-of-place cameos, but even they fail to distract from how flat the razzle-dazzle of each new alien landscape in between feels. The film's expensive-but-unsophisticated visual effects, are, at best, benignly underwhelming (and what little wonder is raised by their colourful panoramas is immediately extinguished by the unwanted musical accompaniment of an asinine pop remix). Similarly, the ludicrously kitschy costumes do nothing to dispel the aesthetic of tackiness (poor Oprah looks like she should be engaged in a ray gun battle with Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon). If this is what $100 million looks like, it's not money well spent.
Things do pick up favourably upon our heroes' arrival at the forebodingly conformist alien hell-hole Camazotz. DuVernay excels at conjuring inventively creepy set pieces, some pushing the boundaries of what otherwise plays as a distinctly young children's film (perhaps a horror movie should be next on her docket?), and, briefly, the film is infused with the glimmer of actual stakes and emotional resonance. Naturally, it doesn't last long, losing steam with a stuttering dud of an ending, which takes all of the nonchalance of the (non)climax of L'Engle's novel, and drenches it with an uncomfortable excess of shouted sentiment (and if you thought the ending metaphysics of Interstellar were uncomfortable... hoo boy; just you wait), just in case the cloying moral hadn't quite sunk in yet. We almost relish the prospect of the children being tormented again as alternative.
DuVernay attempts her own 'Wrinkle in Time' by fusing contemporary setting and sensibilities with the antiquated language and uncynical sentimentality of L'Engle's novel. Her intent, evidently, is to show how much our jaded, modern world could benefit from an infusion of more old-fashioned whimsy - which is pretty hard to argue with. Unfortunately, the pairing of quaintness and contemporary is a perennially dubious fit, the twain influences serving to best illustrate each other's worst qualities rather than complimenting each other (Charles Wallace delivering a chirpy, James Stewart-esq monologue attesting to Meg's inner greatness in the face of her post-feminist schoolyard bullies is one of the most cringeworthy movie moments of the past several years - but don't worry: it'll have plenty of company by the time the credits roll here). You can practically taste how driven DuVernay is to make A Wrinkle in Time a children's film with a strong pedagogical moral barometer, including commentary on abusive parents and eating disorders, but, sadly, her film is too much of a disjointed muddle for any real impactful content to stand out. Instead of elevated and inspired, audiences are, sadly, likely to emerge as far more cynical and hopeless than before.
Even the film's impressive cast fail to elevate the overcooked, sinking ship of a film around them. Storm Reid feels like a fully authentic teenager (and is lackadaisically likeable in spite of that), but she's a tad too flat to sell her volcanic emotionality as a commanding presence - in short, more 'Meh' than 'Meg.' Chris Pine and Gugu Mbatha-Raw easily steal the show, imbuing the film with its only dregs of emotion and charisma as her earnest scientist parents, but they're both too disappointingly underused to contribute all that much. As the trio of 'magical Mrs.,' Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling, all feel simply uncomfortable, alternating unfunny banter with mawkish overacting and banal pep talks. Levi Miller is the dictionary definition of 'bland YA lead' as Meg's clumsily spontaneous love interest, while Deric McCabe is impressively adept at playing 'creepy child,' but is infuriatingly simpering as Meg's child genius brother.
Time is a precious commodity in today's day and age. Unfortunately, Disney's latest doesn't so much Wrinkle as waste yours. Pundits may complain that 'they 'may not make 'em like they used to' - but, what we learn from A Wrinkle in Time is that, disappointingly, sometimes it's best not to try.
-4.5/10
L'Engle's novel had a gentle otherworldliness in its whimsy, but the only thing 'otherworldly' in Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell's screenplay is that it reads like an extraterrestrial inhabitant clumsily trying to piece together how humans verbally communicate. The film drips with more grotesquely stale exposition than dialogue, with the unappetizing side order of characters reacting to the increasingly fantastic happenstances as if shot with tranquilizer darts, dopily shuffling from point to point without ever seemingly registering an emotional response. Fall into an immediate conversation about feelings with a boy you've never met? Already outlandish for a teenager. Travel across the universe with a passive-aggressive space-witch who eventually takes the form of a flying cabbage? Oh. Sure. Come face-to-face with the root of all unhappiness and evil in all multiverses? Meh. It almost defies belief that the director of the flooring, poignant Selma is capable of producing a film so shallow and emotionally stilted.
It would normally play as charming to have a children's film bounce with the same episodic stream-of-consciousness of a child's storytelling, but DuVernay is never fully able to corral the playful lilt of L'Engle's gossamer, episodic plot. Instead, the film lurches from blandly dazzling planet to confusedly extraneous supporting character with nauseating, plodding incoherence. Loopy yogi Zach Galifianakis and charmingly threatening Michael Peña do their best to raise laughs with their awkwardly out-of-place cameos, but even they fail to distract from how flat the razzle-dazzle of each new alien landscape in between feels. The film's expensive-but-unsophisticated visual effects, are, at best, benignly underwhelming (and what little wonder is raised by their colourful panoramas is immediately extinguished by the unwanted musical accompaniment of an asinine pop remix). Similarly, the ludicrously kitschy costumes do nothing to dispel the aesthetic of tackiness (poor Oprah looks like she should be engaged in a ray gun battle with Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon). If this is what $100 million looks like, it's not money well spent.
Things do pick up favourably upon our heroes' arrival at the forebodingly conformist alien hell-hole Camazotz. DuVernay excels at conjuring inventively creepy set pieces, some pushing the boundaries of what otherwise plays as a distinctly young children's film (perhaps a horror movie should be next on her docket?), and, briefly, the film is infused with the glimmer of actual stakes and emotional resonance. Naturally, it doesn't last long, losing steam with a stuttering dud of an ending, which takes all of the nonchalance of the (non)climax of L'Engle's novel, and drenches it with an uncomfortable excess of shouted sentiment (and if you thought the ending metaphysics of Interstellar were uncomfortable... hoo boy; just you wait), just in case the cloying moral hadn't quite sunk in yet. We almost relish the prospect of the children being tormented again as alternative.
DuVernay attempts her own 'Wrinkle in Time' by fusing contemporary setting and sensibilities with the antiquated language and uncynical sentimentality of L'Engle's novel. Her intent, evidently, is to show how much our jaded, modern world could benefit from an infusion of more old-fashioned whimsy - which is pretty hard to argue with. Unfortunately, the pairing of quaintness and contemporary is a perennially dubious fit, the twain influences serving to best illustrate each other's worst qualities rather than complimenting each other (Charles Wallace delivering a chirpy, James Stewart-esq monologue attesting to Meg's inner greatness in the face of her post-feminist schoolyard bullies is one of the most cringeworthy movie moments of the past several years - but don't worry: it'll have plenty of company by the time the credits roll here). You can practically taste how driven DuVernay is to make A Wrinkle in Time a children's film with a strong pedagogical moral barometer, including commentary on abusive parents and eating disorders, but, sadly, her film is too much of a disjointed muddle for any real impactful content to stand out. Instead of elevated and inspired, audiences are, sadly, likely to emerge as far more cynical and hopeless than before.
Even the film's impressive cast fail to elevate the overcooked, sinking ship of a film around them. Storm Reid feels like a fully authentic teenager (and is lackadaisically likeable in spite of that), but she's a tad too flat to sell her volcanic emotionality as a commanding presence - in short, more 'Meh' than 'Meg.' Chris Pine and Gugu Mbatha-Raw easily steal the show, imbuing the film with its only dregs of emotion and charisma as her earnest scientist parents, but they're both too disappointingly underused to contribute all that much. As the trio of 'magical Mrs.,' Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling, all feel simply uncomfortable, alternating unfunny banter with mawkish overacting and banal pep talks. Levi Miller is the dictionary definition of 'bland YA lead' as Meg's clumsily spontaneous love interest, while Deric McCabe is impressively adept at playing 'creepy child,' but is infuriatingly simpering as Meg's child genius brother.
Time is a precious commodity in today's day and age. Unfortunately, Disney's latest doesn't so much Wrinkle as waste yours. Pundits may complain that 'they 'may not make 'em like they used to' - but, what we learn from A Wrinkle in Time is that, disappointingly, sometimes it's best not to try.
-4.5/10