it means well. this has a pulsating heart, beating deep beneath miles of mess. i can feel it, the movie itself constantly reminds me it’s there, but sometimes that isn’t enough

the headlining actors make this a painless and sometimes joyful ride, and the child actors do bring charm to round out the cast, but the script is incredibly weak, and the plot is even weaker. and people claim that interstellar doesn’t make sense..... the visuals do heighten the experience, it’s clear that ava had a distinct eye for what she wanted, and she goes for it: the colors are saturated and welcoming, a lot of the camera movements are crisp and deliberate. if only they served a bigger purpose.…

At a time when Disney would rather fund suffocatingly faithful (and/or toxically garish) “live-action” remakes of classic films than roll the dice on original stories for a new generation of kids, there’s something refreshing — and downright beautiful — about what Ava DuVernay has done with “A Wrinkle in Time.” Less satisfying than the recent “Pete’s Dragon,” but told with a similar degree of revisionist zeal, this eye-popping adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved 1962 novel scrubs away the Christian overtones of the source material in favor of some distinctly 21st century humanism.

Jesus is out, self-worth is in, and it’s coming for your children via an $103-million orgy of special effects that starts with a giant astral projection of Oprah…

(My review for The Daily Emerald)

Ava Duvernay’s “A Wrinkle In Time” is the first ever live-action film directed by a woman of color to have a budget over $100 million. Considering that just 4% of top-grossing directors from 2007 – 2016 were women, and just seven were women of color, the film undeniably breaks exciting new ground no matter how many diminutive flaws it has.

Based off of the 1962 book by Madeleine L’Engle, the film follows Meg Murry (Storm Reid) as she embarks on a quest to find her missing father (Chris Pine) with her little brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and a boy from school named Calvin (Levi Miller). Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), a manic and impulsive…

This has just a spark of the book's magic. The casting is perfect, but I was sad to see so many iconic parts of the book thrown under the bus because they weren't perilous or dramatic enough. One of my favorites is when Mrs. Whatsit turns into a male centaur (not a string-ray made out of lettuce, although I don't know which is weirder), and takes the children up to where the air is thin so that they can see the spreading darkness. This is a still and solemn moment, not a playful romp that ends in Mrs. Whatsit accidentally dropping Calvin. My other favorite part was the interlude with Aunt Beast, who is barely mentioned in this movie. I…