A Wrinkle In Time

The year of Disney domination rolls on with it's second big release of the year, A Wrinkle in Time. This movie has a pretty big cast of well-known actors like Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine and Mindy Kaling. The movie isn't about any of those actors though, as the story focuses more on the younger Storm Reid, who plays the character of Meg Murry. The story centers around Meg and her family, two scientist parents that have been working on a method to travel through the galaxy instantaneously and Meg's genius younger brother Charles Wallace. It's been about four years since Meg's father mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again. Meg still hasn't found a way to deal with her father's disappearance and struggles through her daily life in school and at home. Things take a strange turn when three magical beings introduce themselves into the life of Meg and offer her the chance to travel the galaxy with special powers (or science) to find her missing father. So Meg, Charles Wallace and their new friend from school Calvin embark on an epic journey to find her father and get the answers that Meg has been wanting for four years.

So let me start off by saying that I have never read the original story and I have no emotional or nostalgic connection to this story at all. With that out of the way, I really did not like this movie. Before I get into why I didn't like it, let me say what was good about it. The best part of the movie was of course the visuals, lots of colorful and pretty visuals with good cinematography to go along with it. The movies faults didn't lie in it's visuals or effects, those were all good to great for the most part. The other good part were the performances by Storm Reid and Chris Pine (Meg and her father), who were the only really good ones in the movie and actually had a few great emotional scenes together, sadly those scenes didn't really work for me because of the rest of the movie taking away from them. Hopefully we'll see Storm Reid in other roles, because I think she definitely has some potential to be great in the future. 

Now for the bad parts, which were many. My biggest complaint with this movie is just how boring it is, just about 30-40 minutes into the movie and I was very eager for something interesting to happen or the movie to just end already. The main reason for this, was that I just didn't really care about any of the characters, especially Meg's brother and friend that tag along with her. Meg's brother Charles Wallace (whose full name is said in the movie about 100 times) was probably one of the most annoying characters I've seen in a movie in a long time. He came across, i'm sure unintentionally, as a pretentious little kid who's trying too hard to seem smart. It gets really bad towards the end of the movie where they put him in a situation that made me groan out loud a couple of times. As for Meg's friend Calvin, well he's just kind of a nothing character that doesn't really do much in the movie except look amazed at everything and... I think that's about it. They try to add a little backstory to him in the halfway point of the movie, but it feels a little forced and there's never really any resolution for it.  The three magical beings played by Oprah, Witherspoon and Kaling aren't very interesting either, mostly one note. Kaling's character "Mrs. Who" speaks only in quotes throughout the whole movie. Witherspoon's character "Mrs. Whatsit" mostly makes fun of the main character Meg. Orpah's character "Mrs. Which" is basically just what I imagine Oprah actually is in real life, not sure if that's a bad or good thing. Either way, all three of them are great actors in other projects, but didn't add anything to this movie.    

The entire story is kind of a mess in the movie. There are lots of things that aren't really explained well about the new world the kids find themselves in after traveling. I found no interest in the lore that they were trying to create for the world, because it wasn't really presented well and it almost felt like they were just making it up as they went along. It's clearly supposed to be this magical world full of wonder, adventure and mystery and the visuals present that well. The thing is, it doesn't matter how great the visuals are when the story and characters are presented poorly. The story won't matter if I don't care about the characters that the story is about. There was potential here for something really cool, and there are moments when you can see what the movie was trying to go for. The mix of science, fantasy and the positive message to kids who might be going through tough times should have made for a really good family movie with a strong message. Instead, I just found myself struggling to stay awake and not really caring what happens next. 

There was potential here for something cool, the premise seemed like it could lead to a mix of great adventure with some heartfelt emotional moments. Instead, it was a messy story with characters that I didn't care much about. The visuals are still pretty great and it's a pretty nice movie to look at in terms of presentation. There are still some nice moments with some good acting between Chris Pine and Storm Reid's characters and an overall positive message that I think will be good for kids to hear. I actually think that maybe this movie would be a good movie for a much younger audience, maybe they will get more out of it then I would and be able to look past it's flaws. This will be my first overall negative movie review, and I wish it wouldn't have been this movie. It's a story that I know a lot of people grew up with and love, but sadly I don't think it was done justice with this movie (as far as I know). 

Overall Grade: D+