Story at root of ‘Wrinkle’ gets drowned

Critics must often spend paragraphs admitting sins of literary neglect when reviewing films, but I have always been of the mind that it should not matter, as we are judging solely on the cinematic merits of a particular title. All books are left to interpretation of their readers, which is why we can appreciate a gun-toting Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo just as much as we can enjoy a young Olivia Hussey as Juliet almost three decades prior.

All that said, I confess to never having read the 1962 sci-fi book by Madeleine L'Engle on which "A Wrinkle in Time" is based. But the entire time I was watching Ava DuVernay's take on the beloved novel, I kept thinking to myself, "This would seem so much better as an animated film."

As it stands, our heroine Meg (played by Storm Reid) is a plucky middle schooler whose physicist father went missing four years ago while dabbling with the time-space continuum. She now resides with her equally brilliant mom (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and off-the-charts smart younger brother Charles Wallace (played by Deric McCabe).

Out of nowhere, young Charles Wallace (yes, they call him by both names throughout the film) lets in a stranger who looks like she strayed a bit too far off the yellow brick road, and who answers to the name Mrs. Whatsit (played by Reese Witherspoon). Meg and her mom are dubious and scared, especially when Whatsit mentions something called a "tesseract," which is what Meg's dad was working on before he vanished.

Soon after, Meg and Charles Wallace encounter a number of other strange women, including Mrs. Who (played by Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (played by Oprah Winfrey), who confirm the time-travel theories and offer hope to Meg that her father is still lost in space, but not beyond rescue.

But time is of the essence, as there is a dark cloud enveloping the universe and threatening life itself. Meanwhile, the children are introduced to a world in which flowers speak in colors, the women can take various shapes and forms, and a cave-dwelling Zach Galifianakis is referred to as a hunky swami.

There is a ton of meme-sized metaphysical banter and New Age nuggets ... let's call it quantum therapy. And while all of that is just fine, "Wrinkle" is introducing us to entirely new worlds, but never stays long enough in any of them to let us drink in the experience. We bounce all over the various interdimensional planes with little connection to these new realms or the characters who either visit or inhabit them.

DuVernay, one of the most talented young directors we have working today, is a storyteller, but whatever story is at the root of "Wrinkle" gets drowned in a sea of CGI schmaltz (much of it very underdeveloped at that). The three seasoned actresses range from overly cutesy (Witherspoon) to mere stately posing (Winfrey) to barely noticeable (Kaling). Reid is delightful as Meg, but is often left adrift to merely react to the green-screen worlds she is supposed to inhabit. As her younger brother, McCabe is rather insufferable and is tasked with a role that is perhaps far beyond his young age. It all amounts to a film that would probably be much more at home in an animated format, where the seams between the fantasy and real worlds are not so visible. That could help viewers suspend their disbelief and maybe iron out the numerous wrinkles in "Time."