User reviews

And that was "What the hell did I just watch?" and variations. I haven't read the books, I have no idea what the story was supposed to be, but even so I knew there was something deeply utterly wrong with it. It really felt like the hallucinations of a drugged person trying to make sense of the story behind and failing miserably. It was so bad that I suspected sabotage. Is it that someone intentionally didn't want it to be any good? I know I should attribute to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity, but in this case, it is far from easy.

The only reason I rated it three stars (towards the funny end of the spectrum) is because of its inadvertent humor, best appreciated while drunk or stoned or part of Myst3k. So many scenes seem to hint to other materials: Star Trek, Dr. Who, Neverending Story. Or maybe it was just me trying to make sense of something completely random. A good description for this movie: white noise. A better one: pretty colored noise.

Good: Some of the messages and morals of the story are heartfelt for its intended audience of children. The saving grace is Chris Pine. Even though he had a small role, he fit the role perfectly and was not so excessive. The color scheme is very bright and colorful, which makes the movie somewhat interesting, even with the subpar acting and plot.....

Bad: The acting all around is either subar from the cast or over the top from Mindy Kaling and Zach Galifianakis that it comes out unnatural. Even with a good cast consisting of Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, they did not add much to the movie's benefit. Disney spent so much money on its adult characters that they forgot to hire good child actors/actresses for the child cast members are not even on par with some of the amazing child stars from "Stranger Things," "It," or "Jungle Book."

Overall: The movie is mainly geared towards elementary and middle school children with some adult aspects, yet the movie is childish and not up to Disney's standard. Disney should be embarrassed to have produced such a movie with big Hollywood names and have it bomb. The movie falls flat and lacks humor leading to a failure for Disney. Even though this movie is supposed to be a big statement towards diversity with a colored director helming a $100 million budget project, the movie does not do justice.

2/5

I really wanted to like this movie. I'm going to try to keep this as spoiler free as possible so bear with me.

First off, anyone that complains about changing the ethnicity of the lead character get over it. Storm Reid is servicable in this role and I can easily see her as Meg. Chris Pine dominates every scene that he's in, as does Gugu Mbatha Raw.

Here's where the problems start....

When I read this book, and it was written in the 1960s so I'll grant that some stuff just wasn't there back then, the Madeline L'engle was at least somewhat subtle with the message she was writing between the lines.

This movie isn't subtle. This movie takes it's message and beats you in the face with it over, and over again.

I get the fact that this is aimed at younger kids, but you really don't need to narrate everything that is happening, or should or will happen. I kept thinking that maybe there was a reason that the adults(not the parents) were phoning in their lines but there really wasn't. The costumes of the three Mrs. characters, when taken out of the previews just look silly. Meg is basically turned into an ersatz audience member where she's just led around being told what to do. I think that with a slightly better script, Ms. Reid would have really been allowed to shine here. She has some potential that isn't really tapped here. I hate to say, but I think that the directors picked her because she looked like she could be the child of the parents more than over her acting ability. That in itself is a real shame, because given the right role, Storm Reid could be fantastic.

Zach Galifianikis is completely wasted here. So is Oprah Winfrey, and Reese Whitherspoon. Mindy Kailing seemed like she was trying to outdo everyone, maybe because she's used to being in tv. I don't know. A lot of the acting just felt forced.

Green screen is used and abused in this film. The first world they go to is amazing, the second interesting, but the whole time I kept thinking that they were going to flash a hitpoint gauge on the screen or prompt me for a quicktime event. There's such a thing as too much CGI and this movie is a poster child for that. Maybe some more work to clean things up would have helped. Maybe not.

Had they stuck to the book more closely I think it would have been a much better film. The early 2000's had a TV movie that I found myself liking more and it was done for a fraction of the budget here.

I ignored the bad reviews and went anyway. Disappointing is probably an understatement. This movie is a disaster. Not only is the acting incredibly awful, especially from some otherwise accomplished cast members, but the original storyline was all but abandoned. I read the book several times, and even I was confused what was going on in this film. There was no explanation for any of the concepts, character development was nonexistent, special effects were plentiful but meaningless. The most fascinating parts of the book were eliminated, or only presented so quickly that it was difficult to understand why they were happening and how they related to the story. This movie could have been SO great - there was incredible potential here, and Disney and the director literally wasted it all.

This movie has nothing to do with the books I enjoyed as a child. In fact it was so poorly adapted that to even call it A Wrinkle in Time is an insult to the original book. If only I could fold time and go backwards to get my 2 hours back and the $$ it cost!! Save your money and your time it's not even worth renting!

By the time "Wrinkle" reached its climactic scenes, where the stakes are highest and the resolution hangs in the balance, it carried so much forward momentum that I had to keep waking myself up so I wouldn't snore and bother the other theater patrons.

Yeah...it was like that.

Look, I'll admit: I've never read the book (shame on me, I guess, as a lifelong lover of SF and general metaphysical weirdness), so I can't judge DuVernay's "A Wrinkle In Time" as an adaptation of L'Engle's literary favorite. But I CAN measure it as a film that wants to tell a story, and on that scale...um...

...

Uy. Never is there a real sense of conflict with which to engage: the tone and mood are so lovey-dovey, from stem to stern, that the film never feels like it's progressing in any meaningful way. The galaxy-gobbling threat doesn't, and isn't. Good performers are wasted on one-note characters (be they whimsical space-nymphs or oh-so-precious baby geniuses) in puzzling costumes and -- were those hairdos? I think they were hairdos. I mean, they were where hair is supposed to be. Expensive FX fill the screen in service to a plot that *drifts* through its paces instead of *advancing*. If there was variance in the musical score, I missed it (but I think I didn't, because I think there wasn't). Michael Peña is asked to leave his "Ant-Man" charm at home and put on a goofy mustache and some red contacts for like a few minutes, and Captain Kirk (the new one, anyway) has a beard and is interesting, but doesn't really do anything and OPE what nope I'm awake not snoring sorry no.

This is going to be someone's favorite movie, and that's a beautiful thing; art needn't be categorically *good* to be *effective*, after all, and I love the hell out of "Xanadu", so I should know. But a film that wants to tell a story should be equipped to tell a story, and if it can't do that, then...it's doing something else, I dunno, I'm...

...

...huh? No, no, I was just...just resting my eyes. It's nice, maybe you should do the same.

Goodness, this movie sure didn't go over with a lot of people! Oh, the anger, the disappointment, the sadness!

But actually it's pretty good, at least according to my girlfriend and myself.

Based on the classic kid's book, this tells the story of two children who go on a crazy, mysterical adventure in search of their father, a physicist who somehow made it into space with nothing more, it seems, than a wish and a prayer.

I've read the book a couple of times, once as a kid and once as an adult surprised because he didn't remember how Jesus-y the book was.

I like the character of Meg, who is smart and determined and afraid and in desperate need of self esteem. One of the major themes was, love yourself, and I found Meg's growing confidence touching.

I was a bit disappointed by Charles Wallace. I recall the character being odd and brilliant, but in the movie he really seems like a pretty ordinary kid. I had an affinity to the book Charles Wallace because I saw myself as odd and intellectual gifted (in retrospect I was more the former than the latter), but I didn't see myself at all in this movie version.

The three wise ladies are fun, particularly a funny Reese Witherspoon as the most prickly of the bunch. The special effects looked good (caveat, I saw this on TV) and the story is well paced. Like any good kid's movie there's a nice mix of humor and pathos.

The religious aspects of the book have been stripped out, which I consider generally positive, although it does make the whole good/evil thing feel a little amorphous. I also felt the book was more interested in scientific thought than the movie, which leaves out things I loved as a kid like visiting a two-dimensional world.

So why don't people like this? It could in part be the disappointment of the movie related to the trailer. The trailer made it look like the whole movie was this stunningly gorgeous bit of magic and female empowerment, but the scenes that made up the trailer are more the exception than the rule. Even though I enjoyed the movie, I think I would have enjoyed the movie promised by the trailer more.

There are also super-fans of the book who are going to object to any changes, including the lack of religiousity.

There are also, unfortunately, people who object to the children being biracial, wanting them to be the white children they pictured when they read the book. In fact, as I write this, the most-liked review on IMDB specifically complains about that. (The second most-liked review takes pains to say that's not the problem, though, so I don't think this is a simple case of crackers pushing the rankings down).

Look, it's not a perfect movie. It's conceptually silly, and it's not one of these kid's films like A Little Princess that transcends kids movies, but it's lots of fun. My guess is it will be one of these movies that becomes more popular in 15 years as a generation of kids who liked it become adults who can offer opinions. Always remember: The Wizard of Oz bombed when it was released.

This is probably the worst Disney movie I've ever seen. It's also probably the worst movie I've seen this year. The movie for starters is flat out BORING. The majority of the film is people standing around talking, and they aren't talking about anything interesting or that advances the plot in most cases. There's some beautiful imagery here, but then there's also too much green screen and CGI going on that it just loses it's luster. What is the deal with this director also? There were probably 70+ shots inches away from each actors face. It didn't look pretty and was extremely distracting to me. Somehow this director had all of these great actors and couldn't even get anything out of the majority of them. Chris Pine was about the only person that did a good job here. I would not recommend this to anyone. It's unbelievable that this is a film with a budget over $100 million. They should have never even released this travesty.

This movie is so bad that I felt compelled to write a review. I did not see any review or trailer and had moderate expectation due to Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon. Unfortunately, the movie turned out to be a huge NONSENSE. I am sorry but the three kids just don't know how to act. Meg Murry was like"huh......ah......hmm......huh......I don't know... I am not sure....AHAHAH" throughout the movie; the little boy who acted Charles Wallace was fine but overacting for the most of the time; the teenage boy was just showing "I am so conscious of my good-looking and I am seducing you". What the heck?! More importantly, the plot is all over the place and filled with cliche. I am for girl power but this is just so cynical and use girl power as a selling point and nothing else makes sense. Witherspoon and Pine are fine but were eclipsed by this bad screenplay. I am so annoyed even though I watched this movie using Movie Pass. A total waste of 2 hours.

I was excited to watch this movie. High expectations based on all the marketing given to it. It ended up being extremely boring, too slow. No action or great parts at all. The story starts and develops so slow and with nothing exciting to tell. There were moments (if not the entire movie) in which all the magic could be seen as fake and special effect only. The acting for the main character is bad. Very bad. I could tell it was too acted. Really, sad too see such a beautiful story brought too life to become so boring and say nothing at the end of it all.

I had been looking forward to this movie because the trailers made it look like it had potential to be a lot of fun. Unfortunately it lived up to none of that potential. Horrendous acting, insultingly cheesy special effects, confusing directing, and a clumsily written screenplay made for a punitive moviegoing experience. My nephew was bored five minutes in, and I was cringing. I am shocked that Disney released this in theaters. They usually have more respect for their customers.

Wow, I am so disappointed in Disney right now. I was expecting so much from this, but sadly it was absolutely terrible! The movie and acting was so cheesy and cliché, I couldn't help but cringe throughout the movie. Chris Pine deserves a much better role than this, especially after his great performance in Wonder Woman. I mean, how could Disney release this kind of rubbish? Did they even watch it before they release it? Did the director even try? 'Cool' visual effects that made the film look like a compilation of advertisements DOES NOT equal to a good movie! Wow.

I never read the book this movie was based on. So I was watching the story with fresh eyes with my movie theatre-working friend just now. He thought it was "weird" but enjoyable. I understood a lot of what was going on though not everything, certainly not why the father wasn't able to go back on earth for 4 years. Special effects were awesome, but then it's Disney so why not? The leading girl was relatable, to me at least. Overall, I wasn't completely convinced at the story points, but I, and my friend, were still pretty touched much of the time watching this, A Wrinkle in Time.

Wow. Something went wrong here. For a movie with the backing of Disney and all the resources that they poses, they must have turned a blind eye to this film, or they must have tried to manipulate and control it super tightly. This movie shocked me with how bad it was, and how Disney would release a movie this bad. They don't do it often. From start to finish, this movie is disorderly, and confusing. Maybe because I didn't read the book, but I shouldn't have to read the book in order to enjoy the movie. The actors all seemed to lack chemistry and understanding of the role. The three children just couldn't carry the plot along. It was a disaster around every corner. A Wrinkle in Time could easily be turned into a rated R film in my opinion, the one thing holding it back was the fact that it was kids and Disney. But had this been Tim Burton like Alice in Wonderland, well it would have been better directed, but it would have set in on a specific style and flow. A Wrinkle in Time never really planted its feet into a specific feel. It seemed to take itself super seriously, but what was happening on screen didn't match up. The score really didn't help. The movie was scored as a dramatic, serious, epic, however, on screen it was kids running around to "save the world". The effects were beyond cheesy. I countlessly had flashbacks to the fantastic hit "Spy Kids 3: Game Over" and its partner "Shark Boy and Lava Girl". In all regards, this movie could rival those movies on the Disney Channel, but this one is too messed up and twisted for kids to even enjoy it. They managed to make a movie that both adults and children could dislike. Disney seems to achieve first still today.

Meg Murray (Storm Reid) and her little brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) embark on a cosmic journey to find their missing father (Chris Pine). Joined by Meg's classmate Calvin O'Keefe (Levi Miller) and guided by the three mysterious astral travelers known as Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), the children brave a dangerous journey to a planet that possesses all of the evil in the universe.

Our take: It's pretty enough to see in theaters. Post credit scene? No.

While Wrinkle has its flaws and it may miss a few marks, it is ultimately an enjoyable 109 minutes. Director Ava DuVernay takes the viewers on a journey and if they allow themselves to suspend their disbelief and remember what it is like to be a child, it's an undeniably gratifying, beautiful, and inspired movie.

First of all, Disney stretched their production budget as far as they needed to and it is clear that no expense was spared. From the celestial couture of the "Mrs." and their frequent extravagant costume changes to the sweeping CGI landscapes and the shimmering waves of the "tesser" this production team really outdid itself in spectacular fashion. The visuals alone make it worthwhile and certainly worthy of a trip to the theater.

There's no denying that Wrinkle is a story that played well when it was written originally in the 1960's, nestled in the pages of a book that you might have read in the 4th grade. It's an easy read, but a hard movie to bring to the screen. The plot of the book is choppy, and the film stayed true to that, making sharp jumps from mesmerizing planet to planet, as well as scene to scene. There are some departures from the source material that seemed to be an attempt at overcoming the issues with the narrative therein, but it was clear that it hurt more than it helped. And while there weren't any gaping holes in the plot, there are quite a few moments that don't seem to make a whole lot of sense - even though we've read the book. But bridging the gaps in the narrative seemed to take a backseat to reinforcing the overall themes of the film, and perhaps that's okay.

The end result is a film that's completely digestible, regardless of the issues it might have. Every performance is strong, the message is powerful, and it makes strides for diversity and representation. As we said in our Annihilation review, we are all for smart, POC women taking the screen in roles as doctors and scientists, and in this case, a twelve-year-old physics prodigy that learns to love her natural hair.

Featuring: An immaculate performance by Reese Witherspoon. And one cannot ignore Disney's typical outstanding ability to sound mix, perfectly matching the orchestral arrangements to the mood in every scene, down to the second.

This must be the most excruciating 2 hours at the movies i've endured in a long time. I've seen my fair share of bad movies, but this one .. oh boy ..is shockingly bad.

This is from a studio that's historically churned out box-office smash hits, and has rarely, if not never, made less-than-stellar "moolah" off of its movies. So it's all the more perplexing that someone actually green-lit the finished product here.

This is a disney movie, after all. Let's break it up -

The story - has taken a break. Don't know where it is right now. The actors - are wasted. Everything is cringe-worthy. The colors - Well, that's all it has. Colors. The script - i doubt if there was one. If there was one, it probably was proof-read by an high-on-lsd hippie. The "moral" of the story - That's on a break too, along with the story.

Ava DuVernay's last movie, Selma, was good. It had a purpose. It had a story to tell. This one, has no story. There is no reason for this movie to exist.

You can tell the audience is being taken for a ride, and has taken them for fools when a $100 million movie has simply laced Ms. Winfrey with ultra-tacky sparkly make-up that was bought at the last minute from the local grocery story, and expecting that the audience (kids and adults alike) will throng to watch it.

I shelled out $18 for this garbage (and i felt it was $18 too many). I suggest you don't. At the risk of pulling your hair out, i suggest watching it when you have none left to worry about.

Great actors with very poor script. Rendering poor performance. Even my 10 yr old daughter was bored and wanted to leave early. We wondered why we were the only ones in the theatre. A real disappointment

After seeing all the hype by Disney I was looking forward to seeing the movie. It didn't take long for me to wonder why I was still sitting there. I kept waiting for something good to happen. I had gone with a friend and we agreed, waste of money for the ticket and time we couldn't get back.

I couldn't even finish the movie. I am speechless it was just so bad. I mean acting , direction , make up, dialogues just a very poorly done movie which did not make any sense at all. 0/10 A complere Waste of time and money.

When I first saw the trailer I was concerned. I re-read the book in January just to refresh my memory on how this SHOULD go... And it should be noted that the book also has it's flaws, like poor character development and an abrupt ending. I'm seeing lots of complaints that movie-Meg is annoying and one-dimensional, and let me tell you, book-Meg is too. However, there is a pivotal scene in the book in which she learns to stop being petulant and finds her purpose, and this scene DOES NOT EXIST in the movie. I would argue that this one scene that they cut out is crucial to the climax of the story, and this adaptation completely jumps over those events. Therefore the fault of character development is further worsened, but it's worth pointing out that one-dimensional characters in children's books are common, in order to allow the child to imagine themselves as the protagonist.

Anyone who's read the book knows that their mother has red hair, and Meg's is a mousy brown. People are so upset by this change. The idea that Meg hates her hair is TRUE TO THE BOOK, and personally, I don't think the texture of the actresses' (mom and Meg) hair are necessary to the storyline. The fact that we chose to make them WOC actually makes MORE sense than what's in the book, in my opinion, because our culture actually SHAMES textured hair whereas brown is just boring. In the same way, Charles Wallace isn't adopted in the book, however I feel it helps to explain his "oddness" more effectively because of it. We aren't recreating the world of the 60s, we're telling the story in present day so our children can relate to the characters and not roll their eyes at an out of touch story. These were excellent ways to do this. The book is written in a way where it does not make it relevant as to what era it takes place; that's part of its transcendence.

As far as the Misses go, they were obviously hyped in the trailer because they're freaking Oprah, Reese, and Mindy, but their roles are not supposed to be main characters. I'm seeing a lot of complaints that they don't serve enough purpose, but that's kind of the point. Albeit, the way they are utilized in the movie doesn't make as much sense as it does in the book with what they chose to leave out, but overall the three actresses play them the way they are written in the book. Whatsit is young and inexperienced in her role, Who speaks in quotes, and Which is your most wise, guiding figure who is so otherworldly she struggles to materialize. And as far as their races go, who cares? The book doesn't describe their skin. I'm more upset that Whatsit transforms into a Green Giant looking parachute instead of Pegasus-like creature described in the book, but that's mainly because I love horses. It doesn't affect the story.

All of this leads me to my final point which is, I don't understand why people think this is so preachy? The entire book is based around the concept of good and evil, love and hate. The "IT" is essentially the devil in the book, to the point where references to God are made (they're EXTREMELY random, but they are made). So what if Meg is insecure about natural waves instead of dishwater brown? So what if we made the Misses Indian, Black and White? The only scene that gets preachy is when Oprah's character Ms. Which describes what "IT" does to our world, and literally all she says is that evil is the influence causing all terrible things in our world. This isn't incorrect. And the whole point is for Meg to learn her potential as a young girl being the ONLY person who can do what they've set out to do. This movie is neither heavily political OR socially conscious, unless you deliberately choose to single out things which neither positively or negatively affect your characters (like race).

Let us please remember that the book was written in the 60s, and won the Newberry for it's radical-for-the-time science fiction plot. No, it wasn't radically socially conscious; most children's books then weren't. But this movie only feels like an agenda if you choose to view the casting in this way. If the whole movie was nothing but white people, it would feel like any other stereotypical "child discovers their potential and how to boost their self esteem" story. There's a new one of those out at least once a year. Please calm down.

This is either the best nor the worst adaptation of a book. It makes some weird choices that make it fall a little flatter than it would have had they followed the book more closely, but when is that ever not true of an adaptation? If you love the book, it's worth watching, but you'll be a little disappointed if you've recently read it. If you've never read the book, there are lots of things which will make you scratch your head and not understand the direction being taken, but keep in mind that most of it is the author's writing, not the directing or acting. This isn't the most exciting work of sci-fi ever written, but it is the foundation of many that came after it. Let's keep it in perspective, ay?

I'm confused how so much money was put into something the director clearly couldn't care less about. Only Storm Reid seemed to put an effort into her acting. Oprah and Reese Witherspoon were dull but that seemed what the director desired. Mindy Kaling was annoying and distracting as her awful acting took you out of the movie experience. I just don't know how the director shot this and decided "yes that's a good take." The adults in this film either mail it in or are just not talented enough for their role.