A Wrinkle in Time

Rating:
Summary: Deserves A Better Treatment
Review: Before there was Harry Potter and Lemony Snickett, there was Meg, Calvin, and little Charles Wallace. "A Wrinkle In Time" was the beginning of one of the best fantasies for older children and, yes, even adults. This film based on the first book in the fantasy is okay, but I feel as if the entire series was cheated when compared to such juggernauts as Potter and Lemony. I enjoy the Potter films and books as much as anyone, but I think that more attention should have been paid to "A Wrinkle In Time." Not only was it the first "big" book that I ever read, it was also the first fantasy that I had ever read. I fell in love with it immediately and it encouraged me to read even more books. A couple of years ago, at the age of twenty-six, I read "Wrinkle" again, because I loved it so much.

Alfre Woodard is great as Ms. Whatsit, and Who and Which are also excellent. The little boy chosen to play Charles Wallace was fantastic, he looked really creepy when It took over him. The rest of the cast is superb as well, but that isn't where my complaint lies.

My complaint is with the production. When the children travel throught the tesseract, fly on Ms. Whatsit, meet the Happy Medium, etc., the production looks like something off of Sci-Fi channel. Also, something is lost in the translation to the screen, and the story comes off slow, plodding, and uninteresting at times. Money is always an issue with films of this sort, but you'd think that Disney would have plunked down a little more dough on this picture. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Instead, the actors are forced to drudge along through the story in an attempt to make the best of what they've been given.

Hopefully someone will come along and give this brilliant story the proper treatment it deserves. It triggered the imaginations of many generations, and it should be given the same care and respect as Potter, Snickett, and all of the others that I'm sure will come along.

Three stars go to the actors in this film. They do a brilliant job given the fact that they had so little to work with. I recommend this one with reservations. It's fun to finally see some great childhood heroes on the screen, but I just wish they would have been treated better. Read the book first, then watch this movie.

Rating:
Summary: "It's Like A Wrinkle in Time"
Review: Full Disclosure on my Biases:

1) I have disliked the Walt Disney Company ever since they dared to release Hunchback of Notre Dame with a singing main character and a happy ending.

2) I would have been disappointed with anything less than a "page one: film that. Page two: film that...Page 212: film that, roll credits" adaptation.


Accepting those two biases in myself, I tried to keep an open mind as the film began. For the first three chapters, the movie was not totally unrecognizable from the book. The actors and actresses shown could have been Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin. Of course the scenes had to be updated for 2001 (when the movie was actually filmed: references to the Internet, CDs, etc.), and certain scenes were borrowed from the first chapter of A Wind in the Door (Charles is in first grade, age 6, not 5 as in the books.) After the first half hour I thought "maybe I was wrong, they might be...."

Then the filmaker takes us off-world (Chapter 4). Major changes start appearing. Characters and sequences begin to be condensed or deleted entirely. Mrs. Which does not carry a broom not does her voice reverberate throughout the area. I'm thinking "ok, there are budgets to consider. It's still ok."

Then we get Meg and Co. to Camazotz (Ch. 6 and thereafter). The plot is suddenly ripped off its axis and sent spinning end over end into Disneyification. The plot is changed radically and what scenes do exist from the book are seen out of order.


The acting itself was decent. The special effects were bad, and incidental music was completely inappropriate in some places. The producer, who still claimed pride in this film's lack-of-quality, told a National Public Radio interviewer "It's like a A Wrinkle in Time. If you loved every word on every page of the original, I hope you can understand the differences between the two mediums and appriciate both."


To summerize my thoughts on this mistake of a production: If you loved the book: you will hate this movie. If you read the book, you won't recognize most of this movie. If you haven't read the book and see this first, you might enojy it, but then go read the book and realize how good the film could have been.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie, better than the book
Review: I loved this movie. I am a big fan of the two sequal books, but I didn't like this one much. I loved the movie. It changed most of the things I disliked. The kid who plays Charles Wallace is great. Meg I loved too. They didn't make her gorgeous. I am so happy about that. They did go a little too pretty, but hey, this is hollywood. Calvin was pretty good as well. I love Alfre Woodard. She was excellent, as were the actresses for the other women. I liked that they updated the quotes. It made it interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Decent but not outstanding adaptation of a stellar book
Review: I saw this film with deep apprehension, having heard very ominous rumors. I came out thinking, well, that wasn't very bad, but it wasn't very good, either, was it?

The three young actors are excellent, particularly Meg. The three ladies are not at all faithful to L'Engle's conception, but on the whole entertaining (especially Woodard) and dramatically effective (especially Nelligan). The other adults are, frankly, boring, except the Happy Medium, who's unwatchable. Nice smirky presence from the Man with Red Eyes, though.

Judging from the deleted scenes included on the DVD, the editing process that shortened the film by a full hour actually improved the screenplay. By cutting the earlier sequences focusing on Dr. Murray's experiments, the film was brought much closer to L'Engle's original plot structure and effectively restricts its point of view to that of the child protagonists. While largely well staged and shot, the extraneous material is mostly unnecessary filler (and removing the already-dated "Star Trek" and "The Matrix" references was a wise move).

The effects are disappointingly low-budget; much of what we see even on TV is better produced than this, let alone on the big screen. The production design of Camazotz is creepy, but doesn't even attempt to convey the deliberate, oppressive banality of L'Engle's description. Aunt Beast and her race are, well, embarassing, as is the flying centaur. The music is pretty, but unmemorable.

Until a really top-notch production of this book emerges, this will have to do. I'm not holding my breath, though. It would take a screenwriter and a director of absolute genius to distill L'Engle's tricky blend of coming-of-age drama, science fiction and cosmic philosophy into a play that doesn't condescend to either its audience or its content. Harrison's version is earnest, but teeters perilously close to committing both errors.

And that flying centaur really is embarassing.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific Book, but Film Doesn't Capture It
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Really should be 0 stars
Review: This was a spine-tinglingly bad movie - I had been anticipating it for years. I couldn't even watch the whole thing. There were so many things "off" with it, I don't know where to start. All I can say is that when Madeleine L'Engle, the creator of this amazing book, says the "I expected it to be bad, and it is."that is a telling remark!

Don't waste your time.

Rating:
Summary: Sure to disappoint -- stick with the book
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Wrinkle in Quality
Review: We all know that some of the greatest movies of all time were based on books. While not particularly accurate adaptations, these movies were nonetheless excellent films. Some great examples are the Harry Potter series, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, to a lesser extent, almost every Disney film ever made. However, I must regretfully announce that A Wrinkle in Time is not one of those movies. Not only does it fail to meet some of the most basic expectations of Madeleine L'Engle's fan base, it manages to defy the standards of scriptwriting, acting, special effects and, ultimately, respect for the audience. Mind you, I'm not trying to be mean; on the contrary, I went into this affair with an open mind. I figured that a made-for-T.V. movie would make up for its lack of razzle-dazzle in its script. After all, the Star wars spin-off Ewoks was decent, if a little silly. Come to think of it, the original Star Wars was made on "a lunch money budget", and look where it took George Lucas! However, from the first scene onward, disappointment started enveloping me as if I'd gotten too close to the Black Thing while tessering.

The same way Greedo shooting first became the symbol of the Star Wars Special Edition of 1997 (a disaster of monumental proportions involving a disgruntled director making several hideous changes to a beloved classic), Mrs. Whatsit has officially become my personal symbol for the confusion and stupidity that is A Wrinkle in Time. The reason for this is the fact that she has been mutated beyond belief. Aside from the slightly controversial decision of casting Alfre Woodard (Star Trek: First Contact and Radio) as our favorite star-turned-mentor, the filmmakers decided it appropriate to introduce her as a crow. That's right, a crow. Moreover, the heavenly centurion form of this greatly beloved character has been hacked at by what looks to be a demented eight-year-old; the majestic half-man, half-horse with wings has become a huge human head with a creepy smile mounted awkwardly on the bowlegged body of a horse that happens to be sporting a pair of wings in the middle. Had I been five, this would have psychologically traumatized me for life. The worst part is the fact that when it spoke, it was shone from behind so as to avoid the responsibility to lip sync, resulting in a scene that was spent looking at the back of its head and seeing a single, unmoving cheek, thus rendering the piece of special effects less believable than E.T.

Having gotten the most painful part out of the way, I must go on to the tear-inducing one: the characters, the acting, and the story. I, personally, had always imagined Meg to look somewhat similar to Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter films: plain hair, glasses, and a figure most supermodels would find laughable. She was always a slightly anxious, humorously pessimistic math genius who quite simply could not have cared less about the imports and exports of Nicaragua. In the film, she is an unpleasant know-it-all for whom I have no sympathy whatsoever. In fact, she makes me feel sorry for poor Mr. Jenkins, her school principal, who continuously has to deal with her. Calvin, the kind, intelligent kid who everyone thinks is a jock has become...a jock! The irony is horrible. As for the memorable Happy Medium, the took the pleasant old woman who liked to look at happy things and replaced her with a being who is "above gender" who likes to look at "funny" things, such as girls falling off of swings. The only two people I can think of who did a decent job are Charles Wallace and the Man With Red Eyes (nicknamed "the Dude With Red Eyes" due to his complete reinvention as a character).

The story is a mess. A good comparison to this aspect of the movie is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which didn't do a good job of retelling the story found in the book, yet kept the sole of the original work. Here, the sole of the book is having a pleasant chat with Hades down in the underworld, apparently unaware that its body is being destroyed. As the Dark Lord complements the sole on how well it showed that truth has to be felt and not seen, the flat-nosed wookies of Ixchel (who replace the wondrous beings who hold Aunt Beast among their ranks) tear the spine up. As the God of the Dead notes how subtle the terror of the earth-like Camazotz was, the torn pages are scattered in the sandstorm and lost in the darkness of the land of evil.

I am very sorry that this film exists. I do not believe that the actors were genuinely bad. It's the way they are written that ruins it. A Wrinkle in Time deserved to be directed by George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, enhanced at Industrial Light and Magic, scored by John Williams, given its sound at Skywalker Sound, edited by THX and marketed by Twentieth Century Fox. In its current state, the film is unworthy to be shown to self respecting people. Even Madeleine L'Engle thought it was bad. The book was Good, the film was Bad, and Mrs. Whatsit was Ugly.


Rating:
Summary: As good as the book!
Review: Why oh why does Disney do such a lousy job with transfers?

It's 2004, Disney... there is NO reason to release a DVD in Pan and Scan only.

It really is a shame, because the film was MUCH better when shown on Satellite in 16x9.