Monday Movie Mania - A Wrinkle in Time

I loved A Wrinkle in Time as a child. And I really wanted to love the new movie version of it, too.

This is the second film adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel. The first was also by Disney back in 2003. It was...bad. So very, very bad. It took a very simple, straight forward children's story and stretched it to unpalatable lengths.

This one wasn't quite as bad, but...


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SPOILERS


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PROS
1) Ava DuVernay stuck to the essential story.

2) The visuals are gorgeous.




CONS
1) DuVernay and writers Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell tried too hard to "update" the story. Meg's feelings of not fitting in are true of every middle school kid since before this book was written. They didn't need to add conflict between Meg and the popular girls at the school.

2) The pacing of the first half-hour of the film seriously dragged. Yes, Meg is the main protagonist, but get on with the story instead of spending so much time saying how middle school sucks.

3) Why make baby brother Charles Wallace be adopted? Normal humans can't have genius kids? In the books, Charles Wallace was the only one that seemed to naturally come from the Doctors Wallace.

4) Why take out the middle twin brothers Sandy and Dennys? They were the catalyst for what Meg perceived as "normal".

5) Taking out Aunt Beast was a mistake. It was through her caring of Meg after Dr. Murray's jump to get her and Calvin away from the bad guys that Meg finds the strength to go back and rescue Charles Wallace.

6) Speaking of which, Meg's anger at her father over leaving Charles Wallace behind didn't seem genuine.

7) Transforming Mrs. Whatsit (the lovely Reese Witherspoon) into a giant green flying flatworm was one of the biggest mistakes. What were they thinking?

8) IT just took over Charles Wallace instead of seducing him to the dark side. Geez, guys, even George Lucas got that right.


The movie lacked the emotional connection, which is needed for the subsequent punch, of the book. They had a superb cast, but the script just felt dead. I wanted to love this movie. I really did. But it is merely an adequate distraction for very young children.

Overall, I give A Wrinkle in Time 5 stars out of 5 10.