A Wrinkle In Time is a bad example for Ava DuVernay to show future employers what she can do with green screens. But hey, Warner Bros. Pictures has her for their next DC project. Go figure.
This was my first experience of a Ava DuVernay movie; and if I have not heard how great a director she was, I would have written her off immediately. And if I'm only judging her by this movie, then I would conclude that she is not good with green screens, which basically mean she is no good with big budget spectacle movies.
She used a lot of close-ups which I found annoying and unnecessary. And when her cast was in front of green screens, their acting was atrocious.
Her introduction to this story felt crippled because there was just no time to get to know some key characters such as the younger brother and the friend played by Levi Miller. And then jumping into the fantastical universe, that got worse in the whole experience because it's just jumping from scene to scene with no rhyme or reason.
I felt like Zach Galifianakis' character and his universe was completely useless. That whole scene was unnecessary to move the movie forward as they could have just spent more time in another universe to push the story forward.
Miller was overacting, even his running felt forced. DuVernay tried to give him the heartthrob angle which did not work, and the "romance" with Storm Reid's character were just cringy. And Mindy Kaling was a miscast because her skillset is speaking and being funny and here she was mouth-cuffed.
This was a badly directed, badly edited movie though there were some sparks if you just take a few individual scenes. If the scene was self contained, then some of the visuals paired with the beautiful music were wonderful. But then came the transitions, which some were just awkward and simply bad.
When the movie first started, there were already elements that I was making fun of. That is never a good sign. And the movie made me go through the emotion of disappointment to really hating it.
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