Wow. Something went wrong here. For a movie with the backing of Disney and all the resources that they poses, they must have turned a blind eye to this film, or they must have tried to manipulate and control it super tightly. This movie shocked me with how bad it was, and how Disney would release a movie this bad. They don't do it often. From start to finish, this movie is disorderly, and confusing. Maybe because I didn't read the book, but I shouldn't have to read the book in order to enjoy the movie. The actors all seemed to lack chemistry and understanding of the role. The three children just couldn't carry the plot along. It was a disaster around every corner. A Wrinkle in Time could easily be turned into a rated R film in my opinion, the one thing holding it back was the fact that it was kids and Disney. But had this been Tim Burton like Alice in Wonderland, well it would have been better directed, but it would have set in on a specific style and flow. A Wrinkle in Time never really planted its feet into a specific feel. It seemed to take itself super seriously, but what was happening on screen didn't match up. The score really didn't help. The movie was scored as a dramatic, serious, epic, however, on screen it was kids running around to "save the world". The effects were beyond cheesy. I countlessly had flashbacks to the fantastic hit "Spy Kids 3: Game Over" and its partner "Shark Boy and Lava Girl". In all regards, this movie could rival those movies on the Disney Channel, but this one is too messed up and twisted for kids to even enjoy it. They managed to make a movie that both adults and children could dislike. Disney seems to achieve first still today. 121 out of 154 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Space Oprah: The Motionless Picture By the time "Wrinkle" reached its climactic scenes, where the stakes are highest and the resolution hangs in the balance, it carried so much forward momentum that I had to keep waking myself up so I wouldn't snore and bother the other theater patrons. Yeah...it was like that. Look, I'll admit: I've never read the book (shame on me, I guess, as a lifelong lover of SF and general metaphysical weirdness), so I can't judge DuVernay's "A Wrinkle In Time" as an adaptation of L'Engle's literary favorite. But I CAN measure it as a film that wants to tell a story, and on that scale...um... ... Uy. Never is there a real sense of conflict with which to engage: the tone and mood are so lovey-dovey, from stem to stern, that the film never feels like it's progressing in any meaningful way. The galaxy-gobbling threat doesn't, and isn't. Good performers are wasted on one-note characters (be they whimsical space-nymphs or oh-so-precious baby geniuses) in puzzling costumes and -- were those hairdos? I think they were hairdos. I mean, they were where hair is supposed to be. Expensive FX fill the screen in service to a plot that *drifts* through its paces instead of *advancing*. If there was variance in the musical score, I missed it (but I think I didn't, because I think there wasn't). Michael Peña is asked to leave his "Ant-Man" charm at home and put on a goofy mustache and some red contacts for like a few minutes, and Captain Kirk (the new one, anyway) has a beard and is interesting, but doesn't really do anything and OPE what nope I'm awake not snoring sorry no. This is going to be someone's favorite movie, and that's a beautiful thing; art needn't be categorically *good* to be *effective*, after all, and I love the hell out of "Xanadu", so I should know. But a film that wants to tell a story should be equipped to tell a story, and if it can't do that, then...it's doing something else, I dunno, I'm... ... ...huh? No, no, I was just...just resting my eyes. It's nice, maybe you should do the same. 309 out of 379 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 3/10 So many people used the same title I wanted to use And that was "What the hell did I just watch?" and variations. I haven't read the books, I have no idea what the story was supposed to be, but even so I knew there was something deeply utterly wrong with it. It really felt like the hallucinations of a drugged person trying to make sense of the story behind and failing miserably. It was so bad that I suspected sabotage. Is it that someone intentionally didn't want it to be any good? I know I should attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity, but in this case, it is far from easy. The only reason I rated it three stars (towards the funny end of the spectrum) is because of its inadvertent humor, best appreciated while drunk or stoned or part of Myst3k. So many scenes seem to hint to other materials: Star Trek, Dr. Who, Neverending Story. Or maybe it was just me trying to make sense of something completely random. A good description for this movie: white noise. A better one: pretty colored noise. 28 out of 35 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 2/10 You can't rely on Oprah to solve all of your problems This movie made me want to read A Wrinkle in Time again, because I don't remember the book being this trippy....or disjointed...or heavily reliant on colorful CGI... . Maybe the novel really is unfilmable, because this movie is a mess. From the acting to the plotline to the cinematography-nothing really works. It just goes to show that you can't rely on Oprah to solve all of your problems. 17 out of 21 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 FLOP! One of the WORST movies I have ever seen. There was absolutely no plot, and the OVER acting made me cringe. This movie was so bad that I resorted to doing online HOMEWORK on my phone. I would have just left, but someone else bought my ticket. It was the SLOWEST 109 mins of my life! Pure GARBAGE! 48 out of 63 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink What am I watching? This movie has nothing to do with the books I enjoyed as a child. In fact it was so poorly adapted that to even call it A Wrinkle in Time is an insult to the original book. If only I could fold time and go backwards to get my 2 hours back and the $$ it cost!! Save your money and your time it's not even worth renting! 226 out of 268 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 2/10 Strike 2 Warning: Spoilers I was excited when this was announced as this was one of my favorite books growing up and I still enjoy re-reading this series. However, I also kept saying "I hope Disney doesn't screw this up again," after the travesty TV version they made in the early 2000s. Lo and behold, they managed to screw it up again. Let's start with the few bright spots (and calling them bright spots is even generous). First, I did enjoy the visual depiction of the tesseract. Also, the casting was pretty good. Storm Reid was well cast as Meg, and Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which were also portrayed well, despite that they drastically downplayed Mrs. Which's character. Now, the bad (and there is a lot of bad). Mrs. Whatsit was changed into a completely negative character who seemed completely inept and pessimistic. Important points in the book (Ixiel and Aunt Beast, for example) were completely ignored and given only cursory mentions so fleeting that you barely even notice it. The Man with Red Eyes is turned into marionette who literally collapses on screen. I get that in the novel he was a "puppet" of IT, but the depiction in the movie was laughable. The ridiculous storm scene when they first arrive on Camazotz came out of nowhere and was so ridiculously portrayed. First, they're struggling to find Charles Wallace, then they go through this ridiculous storm sequence, and when they make it over this wall (which again, was nowhere in the source material), that concern for Charles Wallace is completely gone until he pops out of nowhere saying "here I am." And are Meg and Calvin relieved to see him? Nope. It's more like "meh, okay." The movie completely left out how Calvin and Dr. Murray got back from Camazotz. All of a sudden, they're just back. Poof, no explanation. I get that certain stories require work to adapt: I didn't get particularly outraged with some of the changes "Prince Caspian" and "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" made in the Narnia series because those were short novels whose structure required adaption to make them cinematic. I wasn't necessarily pleased with all of them, but given the structure of the books, it was understandable that some work had to be done. "A Wrinkle in Time" was different. It's a very linear story which already was very cinematic and could easily translate itself from page to screen. But instead of a faithful adaption, the filmmakers decided to ignore 90% of the source material. Strike 2, Disney. You've now screwed this same story up twice. 249 out of 293 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Did the director even try? I'm confused how so much money was put into something the director clearly couldn't care less about. Only Storm Reid seemed to put an effort into her acting. Oprah and Reese Witherspoon were dull but that seemed what the director desired. Mindy Kaling was annoying and distracting as her awful acting took you out of the movie experience. I just don't know how the director shot this and decided "yes that's a good take." The adults in this film either mail it in or are just not talented enough for their role. 126 out of 175 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Boring, too slow I was excited to watch this movie. High expectations based on all the marketing given to it. It ended up being extremely boring, too slow. No action or great parts at all. The story starts and develops so slow and with nothing exciting to tell. There were moments (if not the entire movie) in which all the magic could be seen as fake and special effect only. The acting for the main character is bad. Very bad. I could tell it was too acted. Really, sad too see such a beautiful story brought too life to become so boring and say nothing at the end of it all. 154 out of 199 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 So disappointing. I ignored the bad reviews and went anyway. Disappointing is probably an understatement. This movie is a disaster. Not only is the acting incredibly awful, especially from some otherwise accomplished cast members, but the original storyline was all but abandoned. I read the book several times, and even I was confused what was going on in this film. There was no explanation for any of the concepts, character development was nonexistent, special effects were plentiful but meaningless. The most fascinating parts of the book were eliminated, or only presented so quickly that it was difficult to understand why they were happening and how they related to the story. This movie could have been SO great - there was incredible potential here, and Disney and the director literally wasted it all. 487 out of 569 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 2/10 Horrible! This is probably the worst Disney movie I've ever seen. It's also probably the worst movie I've seen this year. The movie for starters is flat out BORING. The majority of the film is people standing around talking, and they aren't talking about anything interesting or that advances the plot in most cases. There's some beautiful imagery here, but then there's also too much green screen and CGI going on that it just loses it's luster. What is the deal with this director also? There were probably 70+ shots inches away from each actors face. It didn't look pretty and was extremely distracting to me. Somehow this director had all of these great actors and couldn't even get anything out of the majority of them. Chris Pine was about the only person that did a good job here. I would not recommend this to anyone. It's unbelievable that this is a film with a budget over $100 million. They should have never even released this travesty. 149 out of 192 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Oprah for President...I Hope Not! This is what happens when you collaborate talent with a personality that walks on air! Oprah can never get real performances and real feedback because her ego is so blunted with power and control. She lost focus...totally! Her constant desire to evangelize her positions taken to film failed miserable here. Even Disney capitulated to her. This is like Steve Jobs opening a pizza franchise--he's Steve Jobs, of course it will succeed! Actually, not. If this is a taste of Oprah's leadership, she will be a train wreck as bad as Trump! In fact, they have a lot in common, they just go about it differently. Live n' learn Disney. Someone just got fired for caving to the O! 57 out of 83 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 2/10 A total misfire and mess How could this movie with an accomplished director Ava DuVernay and Jennifer Lee, the screenwriter behind the wonderful animated films like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen and Zootopia as well a beloved yet brillant source material by Madeleine L'Engle turn this adaptation into a beautiful yet disappointing mess? Truly all of this expectations for this film turned into a great let-down. Even a well studded cast is unable to save this wreck. Worse is that the dialogue, character development, the overuse of CGI and the convoluted plot is making it a major disappointment of 2018. Even the acting is not good with one that goes unnatural like Mindy Kaling and Zach Galifianakis while Reese Witherspoon's and Deric McCabe's acting goes over the top and very annoying and even Oprah Winfrey comes as total bland and boring. The only redeeming qualities is that film contains empowering messages as well a great statement to diversity and feminism as well the performances of Storm Reid, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Chris Pine which are the only saving graces. A Wrinkle in Time should have been the next Wonder Woman. It's a big shame that all of the great intentions were given a waste of time, effort and talent. Lastly, it is clear that the adaptations of sci-fi genre cannot work for Disney as demonstrated in the previous sci-fi adaptations that failed before such as Tomorrowland, Tron: Legacy, and John Carter. 127 out of 190 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink Too many wrinkles, too much time, too little sense. I'm always in favor of a good lesson for kids wrapped in an adventure, no matter how out there it might be. The astral travel in A Wrinkle in Time is where teen Meg (Storm Reid) must go through a portal to find her scientist father. He's been gone for 4 years, having discovered that portal as physicist and entered it, foolish dad to abandon family just to go where no man has ever gone before. Unfortunately, Meg's coming of age as she travels with wunderkind little brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and high school chum Calvin (Leo lookalike Levi Miller), never involves defining challenges but rather just murky CGI and an evil force straight out of Arrival's Rorschach alien. While we hear about her need to have more confidence and be more aggressive, when she finally achieves those, the film is almost over, and the transforming beats are not obvious anyway. Even the "Which's" interstellar guides, play by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling, are unimpressive personalities with equally unimpressive costumes. While they might be a cross between the benign Glinda of Oz and the three witches of Shakespeare on Prozac, they are not seminal to Meg's development or the plot's. I can advise Oprah to slink back to her kingdom and Pine to go back to his starship. As for you, audience, I advise you to avoid this clunker and see The Shape of Water. No, that's not kids' stuff, but maybe that's all for the good. As Oprah's Mrs. Which intones, "Trust nothing." Trust not this film to do justice to Ms. Lengle's original. 52 out of 83 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 2/10 A Wrinkle In Time Review: What do you get when you take, horrid visuals, terrible acting, some of the worst direction you've seen in a film complete with awful shot composition and a hundred foot tall talking Oprah? You get the worst film of 2018 so far, Disney's A Wrinkle In Time, of course! 90 out of 124 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 7/10 Totally don't get all the hate Goodness, this movie sure didn't go over with a lot of people! Oh, the anger, the disappointment, the sadness! But actually it's pretty good, at least according to my girlfriend and myself. Based on the classic kid's book, this tells the story of two children who go on a crazy, mysterical adventure in search of their father, a physicist who somehow made it into space with nothing more, it seems, than a wish and a prayer. I've read the book a couple of times, once as a kid and once as an adult surprised because he didn't remember how Jesus-y the book was. I like the character of Meg, who is smart and determined and afraid and in desperate need of self esteem. One of the major themes was, love yourself, and I found Meg's growing confidence touching. I was a bit disappointed by Charles Wallace. I recall the character being odd and brilliant, but in the movie he really seems like a pretty ordinary kid. I had an affinity to the book Charles Wallace because I saw myself as odd and intellectual gifted (in retrospect I was more the former than the latter), but I didn't see myself at all in this movie version. The three wise ladies are fun, particularly a funny Reese Witherspoon as the most prickly of the bunch. The special effects looked good (caveat, I saw this on TV) and the story is well paced. Like any good kid's movie there's a nice mix of humor and pathos. The religious aspects of the book have been stripped out, which I consider generally positive, although it does make the whole good/evil thing feel a little amorphous. I also felt the book was more interested in scientific thought than the movie, which leaves out things I loved as a kid like visiting a two-dimensional world. So why don't people like this? It could in part be the disappointment of the movie related to the trailer. The trailer made it look like the whole movie was this stunningly gorgeous bit of magic and female empowerment, but the scenes that made up the trailer are more the exception than the rule. Even though I enjoyed the movie, I think I would have enjoyed the movie promised by the trailer more. There are also super-fans of the book who are going to object to any changes, including the lack of religiousity. There are also, unfortunately, people who object to the children being biracial, wanting them to be the white children they pictured when they read the book. In fact, as I write this, the most-liked review on IMDB specifically complains about that. (The second most-liked review takes pains to say that's not the problem, though, so I don't think this is a simple case of crackers pushing the rankings down). Look, it's not a perfect movie. It's conceptually silly, and it's not one of these kid's films like A Little Princess that transcends kids movies, but it's lots of fun. My guess is it will be one of these movies that becomes more popular in 15 years as a generation of kids who liked it become adults who can offer opinions. Always remember: The Wizard of Oz bombed when it was released. 63 out of 103 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 A rare misfire for Disney I had been looking forward to this movie because the trailers made it look like it had potential to be a lot of fun. Unfortunately it lived up to none of that potential. Horrendous acting, insultingly cheesy special effects, confusing directing, and a clumsily written screenplay made for a punitive moviegoing experience. My nephew was bored five minutes in, and I was cringing. I am shocked that Disney released this in theaters. They usually have more respect for their customers. 212 out of 277 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Disney Used to be Good It's amazing that the Disney of the past which gave us Snow White, Pinnochio, Bambi and even 2001 A Space Odyssey is now turning our such complete garbage. It so boring and not true to the book. Plenty of liberties were taken with the story to lower the bar and attempt to appeal people without brains. A Wrinkle In Time should be titled: "A Wastage Of Time." 39 out of 57 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 A Wrinkle in Time = Total Waste of Time There is no other movie in film history that comes even close to this one! Hands down, this is the winner in almost every category: Worst writing, Worst Acting, Worst editing (doubt did they did any)! It was like the very most banal Hallmark card greeting being stretched out to 2 hours with the most unimaginative dialogue being delivered on slower than slow setting, followed by loooooongest pauses in between to focus on unanimated eyes and expressions of actors delivering absolute drivel. What else can I say? I was wishing for tomatoes to throw at the screen whenever the young kid was on with his obnoxious little squeaky voice? That Chris Pine over-acted his buns off trying to emote something in this quagmire? It was embarrassing.Finally we got to see Oprah and Reese who teamed up to make yet another "girl warrior" film, and make money off the backs of sad women. They were as awful as this movie. 33 out of 47 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 I couldn't do it. Had to walk out There seems to be a decent story somewhere in this message. But I couldn't make it far enough in. This is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Now I'm just sitting in the parking lot, writing a review while I wait for my wife and kids to exit the movie in about an hour. 80 out of 110 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 2/10 More like unappealing than timeless Considering it's been 5 years since this came out, I'm not even remotely surprised at this point. We live in a world where a big corporation like Disney makes terrible/bland live action remakes, pushing agendas as an excuse to make a quick buck instead of making original content that's heartwarming, and declining in quality ever since the pandemic. You guys are probably asking, "What does that have to do with the movie?". Well, needless to say that Disney has been losing creativity over the years and this is a perfect example of that. Sorry for being a little negative right now during the month of Thanksgiving. It's just that ever since I've watched this movie on Netflix years ago, I became baffled. This could've had so much potential to be a good adaptation of a really good book that many people grew up with and yet it fails in every aspect. I know many people didn't like the 2003 TV movie adaptation, but at the very least it tried to acknowledge it. It's like the executives of this movie decided to butcher the book in favor of spectacle (which doesn't look that appealing to be honest). The pacing is dull, the music score from Ramin Djawadi (composer of Game of Thrones) is so generic, the CGI effects are lifeless, and the characters come across as depressing than charming. Which is a shame because Storm Reid and Chris Pine are the only good things in this movie since they tried to put some effort into their roles, but even those weren't enough to save the movie. So, yeah, those who are seeking for any good Disney movie should avoid this. 4 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 4/10 Not a Step in the Right Direction for Disney Good: Some of the messages and morals of the story are heartfelt for its intended audience of children. The saving grace is Chris Pine. Even though he had a small role, he fit the role perfectly and was not so excessive. The color scheme is very bright and colorful, which makes the movie somewhat interesting, even with the subpar acting and plot..... Bad: The acting all around is either subar from the cast or over the top from Mindy Kaling and Zach Galifianakis that it comes out unnatural. Even with a good cast consisting of Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, they did not add much to the movie's benefit. Disney spent so much money on its adult characters that they forgot to hire good child actors/actresses for the child cast members are not even on par with some of the amazing child stars from "Stranger Things," "It," or "Jungle Book." Overall: The movie is mainly geared towards elementary and middle school children with some adult aspects, yet the movie is childish and not up to Disney's standard. Disney should be embarrassed to have produced such a movie with big Hollywood names and have it bomb. The movie falls flat and lacks humor leading to a failure for Disney. Even though this movie is supposed to be a big statement towards diversity with a colored director helming a $100 million budget project, the movie does not do justice. 2/5 130 out of 206 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Worst Film of 2018 - A Wrinkle in Time This is an unintentionally hilarious sci-fi yarn that was supposed to be "meaningful" and "high-tech". It still makes me laugh just thinking about how awful this film is. Oprah Winfrey cannot act; neither can anyone else in this Billy Mumy wannabe ripoff. Give me the Twilight Zone episode with Mumy for 25 minutes over this cornball crap. Aside from the terrible story line; a man gives up his supposedly happy home life for years discovering the cosmos and travel at faster than lightspeed. Please; give me Buzz Lightyear for infinity and beyond instead of this lame wuss who cant even discipline his six year old child. What an idiotic storyline; overly simplistic and sugar-coated to the extent you will get Diabetes if you watch the entire film. Don't even get into the racial insults implied in the film. White man with high yeller woman is fine; it can happen. Nothing wrong with that. But to have your daughter prefer a white man, and then the sequence where the little boy prefers a high yeller girl companion indicates a fairly strong disregard of sensitivity for two entire groups: black men and white women. Both groups are excluded from any relationships in the film. All the white girls are bad, and there isn't one positive black man in the film. Nice way to promote racial integration. How ironic that a film that tries to be PC is horribly NOT PC. But the bottom line is that it really is a crappy film. 11 out of 15 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 An Honest Review Wow, this was out of all of a second wasn't it? So, I am going to more or less focus first on the fact that this has NOTHING to do with the book. Why even carry the same title if you are going to diverge so much from the source that it is unrecognizable for the fans of the source? But that IS the new trend isn't it? That is the new Hollywood formula.
But that is not really the ONLY reason. I mean I grew up in the 80s, I saw made for TV movies, geared at children, that looked better than this. Seriously, it looked like an NBC Saturday Morning cartoon made for kids under 10 in the 90s on a shoestring budget. When you cast so many big names that you have no budget left to make the film...it's going to look horrible. 8 out of 10 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote. Permalink 1/10 Saw this coming. Terrible Terrible, ew. Bad story, bad acting, bad visuals, horrific idea. What an ugly movie. I saw this flop coming right wen the first trailer was released. It doesn't even deserve a 4/10. It deserves a 1/10. The only reason it gets a 1 is cause I went to see it just to prove my point. |
