Underwhelming ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ never delivers truly wondrous moments

Although movies featuring original characters whose physical attributes have been unspecified elsewhere are legitimate equal-opportunity roles for any actors, deviating from already established characters turns a project into either a sort of alternative-reality racelifted remake (the black-cast versions of “Annie” and “Steel Magnolias”), a re-imagined novelty (“The Wiz”), comic exploitation (“Blacula”) or a display of randomly colorblind inclusiveness (a black Human Torch in the most recent “Fantastic Four”). “The thing I don’t understand”, I said, “is that I’m not sure what age group this is for”. I’m too busy scratching my head.

This unbalance of intended audience is one of my biggest problems with the film. The special-effects are cool, but this is still a secular sermon disguised as a movie. Which constantly speaks of the children’s need to become warriors for the light against the forces of darkness, as if evil is some external entity to be defeated. Who (Kaling) communicates by quoting the wisdom of artists and world leaders and other historical figures. I felt like I couldn’t do it and I couldn’t pull it off but everybody made me feel so comfortable. “This is a happy movie in a dark time, which is particularly important for young kids, especially young regular girls”.

The more I think about it, the more I think the ideal Wrinkle viewer is aged about 10 or 11.

The first wave of reviews for the highly-anticipated “A Wrinkle in Time” are out – and they are a mixed bag. They want Clueless and Titantic (at least, that’s what I wanted).

And I still feel that way, but as an adult I see Meg’s greatest triumph as something else. Which (Oprah Winfrey) who have come to help Meg find her father.

Despite all its issues, however, A Wrinkle in Time is a meaningful attempt at big-budget filmmaking that, for a change, casts its central hero as a black girl, while making her search for identity and goal universally relevant. Some of the more action-packed moments devolve into a jumble of grayish CGI, losing all of the carefully honed world-building. Additionally, Duvernay chose deliberately to have the Murry family be interracial. The Murrys are a modern American family, writ boldly and beautifully.

In this spectacular science fiction tale, a girl named Meg Murry (played by Storm Reid) searches for her father throughout the universe.

We are now reading the book “A Wrinkle In Time” by Madeleine L’Engle, and we are enjoying the book so much. He ends up being incredibly crucial to the plot, especially at the end, and my jaw dropped at what this kid was pulling off.

Last month, I stated in my review of Black Panther that black people don’t often get to direct Hollywood blockbuster extravaganzas.

But the movie falters in the same places where the book did with pacing and poorly explained scenes or characters. (I am now potty training a toddler, so I know a thing or two about this.) As Meg prepares to go into danger and rescue her beloved brother from the clutches of IT, Mrs. Whatsit asks if she has the courage to go alone. In the film, Dr. Alex Murry (Chris Pine) is white, Dr. Kate Murray (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is black, and their children are mixed race (Reid) or of Filipino descent (McCabe).

McCabe took it all in stride and is one of the most memorable characters in the movie. The ambitious but flatly realized A Wrinkle in Time, from director Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th), is one such film that braves the topical struggles that surround it. And then the stunt and the green screen were a challenge because I’ve never done that before. Early on is a sequence involving the protagonistic elementary school-aged kids riding through the sky on an emerald-colored manta ray type beast with a few dragonlike facial aesthetics which unsurprisingly results in life or death degrees of danger, but all of it feels hollow and shockingly bland for how radiant the hues are, also furthering none of the complex story talking points (ranging from quantum physics, traveling through time to different dimensions, and lightness and darkness existing all over seemingly with the power to influence behavioral patterns of individuals depending on their tolerance levels for evil). I also knew there’d be some similarities and differences. What do you hope that the legacy of this film does?