A Wrinkle In Time
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Movie Reviews of A Wrinkle In Time
Movie Review: A Wrinkle in Time
Summary: 3 Stars
Although the characterizations and effects are well done, I never quite felt totally drawn into the movie. The story centers around three kids going to another land to find the father of two. This land is beautiful with some unusual beasts. But what is most striking about the movie is the emphasis placed on emotions like love. We are shown how love for family can save them from pitfalls they may fall victim to whether in a strange land or at home. Good quality DVD with fair replayability. I recommend renting it first. My wife and daughter have read the book, and they were slightly disappointed. If you enjoyed this catch "Into the West" and "Princess of Thieves".
CA Luster
Movie Review: Terrific Book, but Film Doesn't Capture It
Summary: 3 Stars
I wanted to see a film version of A Wrinkle in Time so badly that I was rooting for this film all the way. However, it must be difficult to capture a book of this imagination if you do not have a big budget like the Harry Potter films or do not have a script that matches the book. The acting by the children are fine, but not stellar, and the beloved characters Mrs. Whatsit & Company were too bumbling and comical for the story. Perhaps a darker, less comical version would have been better.Movie Review: Why this format???
Summary: 3 Stars
Why oh why does Disney do such a losy job with tranfers?
It's 2004, Disney... there is NO reason to release a DVD in Pan and Scam only.
It really is a shame, because the film was MUCH better when shown on Satellite in 16x9.
Movie Review: Shoot me, just shoot me!
Summary: 2 Stars
Crap, crap, crap, it's all crap!
Aside from the fact that is sucked the whole way through, this movie stinks!
I am a huge fan of the book, and I have read it many times over. So when I found this in video form I was thrilled. My sister exactly told me that it was pretty good, I must mention here that she hasn't read the book in over five years.
I had high hopes when the movie began with a cool scene with the star giving its life for the war against Black Thing. And that's a good place to start, the Black Thing was more often then not, a purple thing or a blurring thing. There was nothing very scary about the "thing." In the book it creeped you out totally, in the movie you're like, "What? What was that? Why is it evil?"
The second thing that really bothered me was the group of boys that attacked Charles Wallace and Meg were smaller then she was? In the book, they were bigger and heavier then she was. There was no bickering and name calling between the siblings, there was a strong sense of loyalty and love.
Charles Wallace was okay, but I tended to like him better as the creepy evil child he was with it. I know that sounds bad, but you have to consider that instead of being the sweet child he was in the book, he was scornful and nasty as all the others. Blah.
In the book, Calvin is just as important to the plotline as Meg and Charles Wallace. However they buttered his part as well, they merely made him a jock. He did nothing in the movie but make some funny comments. They took a noble and interesting character and made him into a blah cardboard cutout like all the other actors.
Meg, in the movie, was a sulky self centered brat that I hated throughout the movie. All she cared about was herself and her problems. This is one of the times that I wish that, when the character complains about how much they hate themselves, their friends would say, "I hate you too." At the end when she should be delivering the lines, "I love you Charles Wallace! You are the light of my life, and the treasure of my heart! I love you, my baby brother who always cares for me, I love you!"
She's half heartedly says, "I love you and I want to always be there for you." All I can say is lame, lame, lame! Blah!
Central, central intelligence is a joke and we all know it. I like good CGI, but this stuff was laughable! You could plainly see all the fake stuff, it was like they sat down and said, "Let's see just how badly we can butcher this movie and still get people to watch it!"
Mrs. Whatsit was okay, but when she transformed into the creature and turned out to be a horse with a human head and peacock feathers? I nearly died from laughing and crying hysterically. I mean, did they honestly look at that thing and say, "Yeah, looks like the majestic creature described in the book."
Mrs. Who was the best and most faithful of all the ladies, to the book. She was quoting left and right and had a sweet endearing look about her. However I have major problems with her quoting Albus Dumlbedore like he was a real person. I am not a fan of Harry Potter and never will be and I find her quoting him beside someone like Gothre to be repulsive.
Mrs. Which was a fabrication from beginning to end. In the book she rarely appeared and when she did it was in the grab of a traditional witch, for the laughs. But she was stern and loveable at the same time. However this woman was choking in a hideous golden gown and spurting hooky clichés left and right. I hated her.
I also found the Happy Medium to be very stupid, a sweet slightly ridiculous figure in the book, this was a fat man in a turban laughing at other peoples problems! Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that He/She claims to be neither man or woman therefore making gender meaningless. I wish they had killed him off.
In the reading of "A Wrinkle in Time" there is a heavy spiritual sense about it. Biblical figures are mentioned as warrior in the fight against the darkness, not artist and humanists. The bible is quoted in the singing of the beast on Uriel and not just something vague about, "Joy."
Why is it that whenever Hollywood takes a strongly christen story that they turn it into something humanist about believing in our own human powers? I think everyone should have a health amount of self confidence, but not to the sappy and dangerous level they pump it out in this film. They very thing they were saying you should have is what made Charles Wallace fall into the trap of it, in the first place.
The man with red eyes was not supposed to speak outwardly but mentally. He was silently menacing. In this film he was overly emotional and silly, albeit, he did have some killer lines. But they combined his character and that of IT. Instead of the pulsing brain on a dais they had a huge pulsing CGI...thing. It meant nothing to us and all my family thought it was a bunch of worms.
Nowhere is the awesome scene where they reject it using nursery rhymes, or the quoting of the Declaration of Independence. This was a powerful scene they cut completely, and they make the beasts on Ixchel big furry wookie like creatures out of the Twilight zone. Stupid!
All in all this film should have been given another name because this is not the story of "A Wrinkle in Time" I would never encourage anyone to buy this film, either would I encourage anyone to watch, even for free.
Movie Review: Sure to disappoint -- stick with the book
Summary: 2 Stars
Warning: This is a frank, honest review of the movie, and it's only my opinion, but I've seen the movie twice and have read the book many times, and therefore I believe myself qualified to give it.
After receiving 'A Wrinkle in Time' as a Christmas present, I eagerly popped it in my DVD player, ready for the ride of my life. The book, by Madeleine L'Engle, is one of my favourites, and I was interested to see how Disney made the movie.
While some scenes reach a very high level of entertainment, for a Disney B-movie, and you can tell that a lot of thought was put into many of the characters, the movie, in my opinion, fails to reach the heights that L'Engle intended and achieved with the book. It's hard to tell what Disney's target audience is supposed to be -- while trying to attain the intellectual, thought-provoking storyline of the book, the movie attempts to appeal to both infantile and teenage audiences.
David Dorfman as Charles Wallace is not a miscast, but he definitely misinterprets the character development of CW. Indeed he doesn't do much throughout the whole movie, except look like the loser everyone tries to make him out as being. Katie Stuart makes for a far too boring Meg, and I felt no real reason to cheer her on when she tries to win her brother back from The Man with Red Eyes. Gregory Smith is a handsome Calvin O'Keefe, and does give the movie a hot dynamic that it lacks with Meg and her boring family alone, but after the second viewing, it becomes apparent that his voice never changes at all in the movie. His declarations, exclamations and questions all sound the same to me. Meg's twin brothers are miscasts: they are the different, "common" boys that L'Engle makes them out as being, but Disney makes them too young and immature to matter at all.
The witches, however, work together to save the movie from being a total bore, even if they are further examples of the movie straying too far from the book. A black Mrs. Whatsit? A little out there, but it works! Kate Nelligan as Mrs. Which is also a great choice. Aunt Beast is also well done. The Happy Medium is not at all how I imagined him -- he's supposed to be neither a man nor a woman, but just looks like a very feminine man -- but his character is not entirely a flop. The Man with Red Eyes is, however, totally unconvincing.
The first half of the movie, in which Meg and her family, and Calvin are introduced, is a bit of a snooze. I'm not convinced that Meg is anything but ordinary, even though everyone's constantly saying that she's different. It's almost as if the movie is trying to give hope to mediocre girls that they might appeal to guys like Gregory Smith. (I know, that's a very, very mean thing to say, but probably true.) If you've read the book, you can easily fast forward to the second half. Camazotz isn't at all like the Camazotz in the book. Instead of being an almost complete mirror of Earth, the people are even more spaced out than in the book and the atmosphere is red. (?) The ending is decent (spoiler here), but Disney does not employ the L'Engle technique of the witches leaving without saying where they're going or if they'll ever come back. Boo!
I give this movie two stars because Disney tries, and Gregory Smith and the witches kept me watching. Some scenes, such as the phony Meg's family scene that is shown to her on Camazotz, were well done and should be praised. All in all, however, don't get your hopes up. It's a rental. Do, however, buy the book.