We didn't think much of this adaptation of the popular young adult sci-fi book, in which a middle school girl travels through space and time to find her missing father. Though the special effects, wardrobe, and makeup are good, it drags, despite an all-star cast and director.
Storm Reid (a small part in 12 Years a Slave was her feature debut) is young Meg and her parents are Chris Pine and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (last blogged for Wonder Woman and Beauty and the Beast, respectively). There are three witches, with lots of sparkly lipstick and eyeshadow, played by Oprah Winfrey (most recently in Selma), Mindy Kaling (after Inside Out, she continued her series The Mindy Project to 117 episodes), and Reese Witherspoon (she was Emmy-nominated for Big Little Lies after I wrote about her in Home Again). Zach Galifianakis (last blogged for Birdman) is another supernatural character who instructs Meg and the other children to use their cores when standing on one foot. As a yogi, I appreciated that bit.
I didn't read any of the series by Madeleine L'Engle but we thought we should see this movie three weeks ago because the trailer looked good and it seemed to be a cultural phenomenon, directed as it was by Ava DuVernay (most recently in these pages for Middle of Nowhere). Jennifer Lee (Zootopia) and Jeff Stockwell (co-writer of one of my faves, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)) wrote the screenplay.
Ramin Djawadi (of his many projects I've seen only the original Iron Man (2008) and a few episodes of Westworld) is the composer and there are lots of pop songs, too. This 26-song spotify playlist includes eleven songs and 15 tracks by Djawadi.
This is one of the times that we're in sync with Rotten Tomatoes, whose critics are averaging 39% and its audiences 31. Maybe if you're a big fan of the books you'll feel differently.
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