Review of A Wrinkle in Time (2018) by Davidwashere — 30 Sep 2018

I see so many people champion this movie as important because of what it represents as a step forward for representation, with Ava DuVernay being the first black female director to direct a film over $100 million, and being a high concept fantasy film with young black female lead. Which I can respect. But here's the thing...it is true that black girls deserve a film like this. But they also deserve better! They do not deserve a poorly acted, poorly written, safe, pandering, no stakes film that is only made to make a franchise that this pap is! Like this is really bad and the fact people are seriously giving this film a pass for **** identity politics makes me sick! That's not moving forward, that's blatant tokenism and I will not stand for it!

The acting is all around awful! And I do not mean from the child acting, which yes they are terrible! Storm Reid is wooden, Pan survivor Levi Miller is awkward, and Deric McCabe honestly feels like he came from a Disney sitcom (he wasn't, but still my point stands). But honestly I think they might be better than the adult acting, which outside from Chris Pine (who is too good for this movie) and Reese Witherspoon, is just embarrassing. Oprah is underacting, which is surprising from a force of personality like her, Mindy Kaling is miscast and flat as hell, Zack Galifianakis is not even trying, Michael Pina is only in this film for like 5 minutes and even then he's just awkward, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw outside of one scene is just terrible.

I cannot believe Ava DuVernay directed this, and I mean I legit refuse to believe she did because this feels like a half assed studio directed job. Some of the shots are decent, but she was the wrong choice for this. The movie needs to have a surrealist touch like Terry Gilliam or Alejandro Jodorowsky, not someone who is known for making grounded, serious dramas like Selma and Middle of Nowhere. There are a few shots where she is close to that, but overall this film feels lazy from a directorial standpoint. And speaking of lazy, holy **** the green screen compositing is dreadful! Like some of the worst from a major motion picture that I have ever seen all year! The worlds the characters go to look great, but it is so clear that they are on a green screen set and not in these beautiful planets. This cost over $100 million and it is flushed down the drain!

But I do not blame DuVernay for this. I blame it squarely at Disney! This is the second the titular book was adapted from the company, the first being a terrible made-for-TV adaptation from the early 2000s, and it is clear that they are going for yet another high concept adventure film like John Carter, the Lone Ranger, and Tomorrowland, desperate for another Pirates franchise. They should stop because they all are box office disasters! I remember reading the book but barely remembering a large portion of it, but what I do remember is one scene where the main girl sees the life of her love interest (who A, just pops in and have no real reason to be there other than he just tagged along, and B, they have no chemistry what-so-ever) and she sees that his mother abuses him and his siblings, which was a huge moment because this perfect guy has his walls broken down and seeing what he considers a flaw. That never happens in this movie. They completely brushed it aside because that might be too much for families and it will hurt their FEE FEES. What I am getting at is that there is no sense of danger in this film. Even if the visual effect integration was amazing, I would never feel that there was a sense of tension with anyone. They always end up just fine in the end. Like there has to be any sense of grit or an element of stake in a movie to has the audience care, but if nothing bad ever happens to them besides forced conflicts in the third act, then why should I bother caring. Like I said before I don't blame DuVernay for this because more than likely this was micromanaged to **** by Disney to make the safest, cleanest, non-threatening film they could. It's the equivalent of dangling keys in front of the audience, along with poorly integrated pop songs (all originals and all awful) or a cheap and bland movie score.

I remember hearing that the author of the book wanted to make a book that was about exploring complex themes of physics to young readers so that they can understand, but that barely gets addressed, or whenever it does the dialogue is so poorly written that they just flat out spell it out to the audience. The writing in general is dreadful, watering down any element of the book to cringe-worthy lines about love and weird gibberish that Oprah mumbles out of her monotone mouth.