A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
Directed by Ava DuVernay
After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him.
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6 films that influenced A Wrinkle in Time
What critics say influenced A Wrinkle in Time
The second reason that the comparison between DuVernay’s Wrinkle and a film like My Neighbor Totoro holds water is that to fully appreciate this movie, you must accept it on its own terms.
What is clearly intended as the start of a five-film series may well fizzle out in the manner of "The Chronicles of Narnia."
Needless to say, this is an exceedingly strange conceit for a movie, especially one with a massive budget aimed largely at the family trade, and for a little while, I found myself holding out hope that it would prove to be one of those once-in-a-blue-moon oddities that defy all typical expectations for a family film and are all the better as a result—films along the lines of “The 5000 Finger of Dr. T,” “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” “Bugsy Malone,” “Popeye” and “Return to Oz” that could plausibly play as kiddie matinees and as midnight shows.
Working from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee (“Frozen”) and Jeff Stockwell (“The Ottoman Lieutenant”), fast-rising director Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) delivers a film with plenty to look at but little to care about.
(The screenplay is by Jennifer Lee, of “Frozen,” and Jeff Stockwell.)
Directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma) from a screenplay by Disney regular Jennifer Lee (Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen), A Wrinkle in Time feels like a random series of fantastical and often beautiful but still very random events.
If you were to make a smoothie out of equal parts “The Wizard of Oz” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass” with costumes from “The Wiz,” a shot of C.S. Lewis and a villain out of Stephen King, all that Ava DuVernay’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” which was co-written by Jennifer Lee (“Frozen”), would be missing is Michael Jackson’s Scarecrow and a few songs.
And Ava DuVernay's film, from a screenplay by Frozen-scribe Jennifer Lee, is not an unmitigated disaster.
Director Ava DuVernay ("Selma," "13th") has built her career firmly rooted in reality and fails to bring any additional dimension to Jennifer Lee ("Frozen") and Jeff Stockwell's ("Bridge to Terabithia") spiritual science fiction fantasy screenplay.
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The shots of Winfrey, Witherspoon and Kaling in a wheat field, isolated figures on the horizon, recall some of the better images from Stanley Donen’s 1974 film version (a controversial one) of “The Little Prince.”
“Tomorrowland” and “John Carter” are easy comparisons here.