If there's only one description that I can give this movie, it's that it's constantly in my face. Whether it be because of all the many flashy colors that are being shown on screen, or the picturesque CGI backdrops that's full of imagination, or maybe it's just the fact that there were a lot of close-up shots of people's faces. I'm talking A LOT of close-up shots, to the point where I just wanted to push my hand out and tell the characters on the screen to keep to their own personal boundaries.
I don't know what's going on with the script or the direction, but somehow this movie felt like it was in a complete rush. It didn't really give me many moments to just breath and take it all in. The focus seemed to be on just constantly moving the plot along at a breakneck speed, that I didn't really get a proper feel to the world building. I can appreciate all the imaginative and outrageous mix of science and fantasy that makes up this movie, but that didn't change the fact that it made me feel a little detached from what I'm watching.
The one element that kept me going however was Storm Reid as Meg Murry. It helped that her character is the main focus of the story, because she is pretty much the driving force to see things through the end. The rest of the cast were either hit or miss for me. The Mrs, that consisted of Witherspoon, Kaling, and Winfrey, were all interesting in concept, if not totally in execution. They were just fine, I guess. Calvin, the friend of Meg that is played by Deric McCabe, was so embarrassingly underwritten, that he seemed completely unnecessary for this story. I also started to get annoyed by the fact everybody calls Meg's little annoyingly precocious brother "Charles Wallace," and not just Charles or just Wallace. Oh and the other adults weren't in it enough for me to care.
Maybe I'm simply not the target audience for "A Wrinkle In Time," and I should point out that I never read the book that this movie is an adaptation for. Even though I can recognize the craft of putting all that complicated stuff on screen, I can't deny the fact that it just didn't click with me. The overall theme and message of the story is also undeniably profound and a good lesson to learn, but unfortunately it's likely a lot more effective for a pre-teen than a grown adult.
For a movie that is capable of showing me scenes of inexplicable cleverness and creativity, it somehow still leaned heavily on being overtly on-the-nose and obvious with a lot of the plot and philosophical elements. It got pretentious at times, or much too precious the other times. However there were several moments I actually did like what I was seeing. I just wish it completely hit the landing overall.
loveditenjoyeditlikedit IT'S OKAY itsmehitsterrible
