I *so* wanted this movie to be good.
It's not. It's really, really not.
It's a movie full of set-pieces that are supposed to present spectacle that can't get over its love of close-ups and quick cutting to just show it.
It's a movie that tries to tell the audience what to feel by swelling the music and having all the characters go "Oh!" and "Wow!" rather than actually doing the work to make them feel awe. (Or joy, or sadness, or fear, or...)
It's a movie where a character is close enough to another character to be touched in one shot and then completely on the other side of the room in another. (And I'm not usually the "continuity jerk" who gets off on yelling how the bracelet was on the girl's other wrist; it's just really glaring in a couple of scenes.)
It picks up a little when it finally gets to Camazotz, mostly because the need to move plot precludes some of the more aggravating stylistic tendencies; it even has a couple of visually interesting set pieces.
But whole characters are wasted. Calvin is given nothing to do but play sucker and victim. Meg is supposed to be a genius because she mutters science buzzwords under her breath like a Star Trek engineer. Her father spends half his time on screen apologizing. Mrs. Whatsit insults Meg for asking perfectly reasonable questions in ways that would take less time to just answer.
And good God, so much exposition... I want to make everyone responsible for the bones of this movie stand in front of a blackboard and write "Show us, don't tell us" a hundred times.
I'm sorry, Madeline L'Engle... They blew it. And I can honestly only hope that, against all expectations, the box office will show them that bungling like this isn't okay, because this movie deserved better. I'm not even a hardcore "they screwed up my favorite book" person, they just... made a bad movie. And they didn't have to. And it's a shame.
It's not. It's really, really not.
It's a movie full of set-pieces that are supposed to present spectacle that can't get over its love of close-ups and quick cutting to just show it.
It's a movie that tries to tell the audience what to feel by swelling the music and having all the characters go "Oh!" and "Wow!" rather than actually doing the work to make them feel awe. (Or joy, or sadness, or fear, or...)
It's a movie where a character is close enough to another character to be touched in one shot and then completely on the other side of the room in another. (And I'm not usually the "continuity jerk" who gets off on yelling how the bracelet was on the girl's other wrist; it's just really glaring in a couple of scenes.)
It picks up a little when it finally gets to Camazotz, mostly because the need to move plot precludes some of the more aggravating stylistic tendencies; it even has a couple of visually interesting set pieces.
But whole characters are wasted. Calvin is given nothing to do but play sucker and victim. Meg is supposed to be a genius because she mutters science buzzwords under her breath like a Star Trek engineer. Her father spends half his time on screen apologizing. Mrs. Whatsit insults Meg for asking perfectly reasonable questions in ways that would take less time to just answer.
And good God, so much exposition... I want to make everyone responsible for the bones of this movie stand in front of a blackboard and write "Show us, don't tell us" a hundred times.
I'm sorry, Madeline L'Engle... They blew it. And I can honestly only hope that, against all expectations, the box office will show them that bungling like this isn't okay, because this movie deserved better. I'm not even a hardcore "they screwed up my favorite book" person, they just... made a bad movie. And they didn't have to. And it's a shame.
