Review: A Wrinkle In Time

“Why is Oprah so big, and then not? Why is Reece Witherspoon suddenly a flying CGI creature? Why is the little boy so fricken annoying? Why is EVERY shot right in the actors face????”

Disney hits the market with a fantasy children’s adventure movie that is neither fantastic or overly suited for children. For a film that is all about ‘the universe’ and travelling huge distances and exploring the unknown, this film is very small in scale and not at all interesting to watch.

Oprah tries to steady the film, but she is stuck standing still and the film continues to wobble throughout

The first third of the film feels like an endless stream of slightly stoned characters smiling wide-eyed at pretty pissy CGI. We are introduced to Chris Pine and his annoying beard that has a little too much cheek action going on and you just wish he could even out that cheek line. Come on Chris, in one of your more recent films you hooked up with Wonder Woman. She’d be more likely to hook up with the drunken singing Irishman now than you with that beard!

Pine plays a scientist who just happens to know that you can travel to other parts of the galaxy by using your brain to fold space and time, kind of an Event Horizon meets Somewhere in Time idea. Our main character however is his daughter Meg (insert Peter Griffin fart noise)…

Meg has a tough life. She’s brilliantly smart, but damn it, she has curly hair and her dad, who was working on a concept that would probably lead to it seeming that he just vanished, but damn it, rather than think maybe he achieved it, instead we must assume he just up and vanished like a fart in the wind and doesn’t care about her. So she has to be depressed. She also acts out, in the most Disney appropriate ways of course.

We also her extremely annoying little brother, the obnoxiously smart Christopher-Wallace. Why do I remember his characters name so easily? Because they say it NON Stop! And it’s always Christopher-Wallace…. Never Chris, or even C.W, no the full name every time. So frustrating.

They are joined by the classic Disney, non-threatening pretty boy love interest for our female lead, played by Levi Miller. He just tags along, because, why not.

The story is pushed along by the introduction of the three mrs… played by Oprah, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling. These characters are all kinds of annoying, sprouting exposition like they're reading it off a cue card, and just smiling at the young characters whenever they don't know what else to do.

Oprah was a poor choice for this film. She’s very flat and doesn’t come across the wise leader that she seems to supposed to be. I think the idea was that her presence would be enough based on who she is, but her acting isn't suited to the role and the character doesn't have a lot to do. Witherspoon gives a lot of effort, but she struggles to lift the material with her arms wrapped in layers of ridiculous clothing. When she goes full CGI, the film successfully jumps the shark and lets you know its time to give up on this story. The third one is just forgettable.

Wow, this looks real... yet somehow Witherspoons chin is still so prominent.

The filming of many scenes is extremely uninspired. Almost every scene of dialogue is filmed in close-up, with everyone’s face front and centre of the frame. You feel you could pick their nose its so close to the camera. The action is dull and feels very flat against the screen. As a film that travels the universe, I’ve seen more detail and sense of wonder in low budget sci fi TV shows.

The latter part of the film suddenly goes quite dark and will confuse little kids, as Charles-Wallace goes full evil Damien and starts causing all manner of issues. But don’t worry, there’s a bag full of cliché ideas the story could use to fix everything and you won’t be too surprised at how they resolve everything.

For a big budget movie, this feels very much like a Disney channel special and whilst they might be hoping for a franchise out of it (I believe there are multiple books in the series), the film hasn’t been well received. On a $100 mil budget, the film has only taken $117 mil world wide, meaning Disney have lost a lot of money on this stinker, and deservedly so. They didn’t really put in a lot of effort here and perhaps the success of other films lead to complacency on their part. I'm glad to say I saw it for free.

If you have kids, take them to one of the animated movies on offer, as I'm sure they will be better than this stinker.

The five bearded questions:

1. Was it worth a cinema trip? No

2. Would I See It Again at the Cinema? No

3. Would I buy it on Blu-ray: (only films I really love get bought these days) No 4. Do I Recommend people see it? No, unless you’re drunk.

5. Any cheese/ Disney style bullshit?: (such as jokes wedged in at serious moments, because fun!). Yes.