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Rating: C+
Madeleine L'Engle's classic book hits the big screen with this weekend with Disney's big adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time. Storm Reid takes on the role of the one and only Meg Murry, a young girl whose father (Chris Pine) has gone missing four years ago after attempting to hyper travel through the universe. Left with her mom and her younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and self-esteem issues, Meg struggles with her day to day life. She juggling finding herself and handling the constant bullying she gets from school. She is busy going through the motions when one day her brother invites a strange woman into their home who goes by the name of Mrs. Whatsit played by Reese Witherspoon. This strange guest leads to the arrival of two other strange women Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah) and only pulls Meg deeper into something she never knew existed and a chance to bring her father home.
Okay first off I need to start by saying I read this book about 8 years ago so there isn't going to be a lot of comparing and contrasting the book/movie here. So just focusing on this film as a stand-alone work, here are my thoughts. The beginning of this movie feels super rushed. I am sure they had to edit a lot for time since this doesn't seem like an easy story to adapt for the big screen and the film is already almost two hours long, but it just needed a little more built up before we are thrust into the crazy universe. Levi Miller, who plays Calvin in the film, entrance to the movie just feels slightly odd. We see him once in the hallway of Meg's school for half a second and now he is a major character in the film? What? And then there is the adorable Charles Wallace. He is smart and cute and why is he letting strangers into the house? How does he know Mrs. Whatsit and why are we trusting the youngest member of the house to tell us what our next move is? it just feels weird and rushed so we can get down to business with the rest of the story.
Our three celestial guides do an okay job and while they look pretty, they feel like flat characters and maybe it is just me, but I think they should seem so much more impressive than they are. The film is all about light overcoming darkness and these three figures are supposed to be our tour guides through the crazy but they are just lacking something.
Lastly, there are some pretty intense scenes in the film, that if I was a little kid, they would have probably scared the hell out of me. The scenes fighting the darkness aka The It are pretty cool but definitely made for slightly older kiddos. The story itself may be hard to follow for really small ones. I was even having issues with parts of it. The big ending left me with a few things that I felt were problematic, but I don't wanna spoil anything for you guys.
Overall, I was hoping for more from this film. I know people who lived for this book when I was younger. This film sadly feels like it would have made a better TV series so it could take the time and pacing it needs to translate the story to the screen properly. I had to score this one with a C+. Maybe if I had recently read the book I would have been more into this one, but as it stands this was just kind of meh for me. Maybe you will enjoy it and if you do I need you to sit me down and explain to me why you like it. Really, I need to know,
A Wrinkle In Time hits theaters everywhere March 9th.
A Wrinkle In Time