A Wrinkle In Time - review

A Wrinkle In Time is a family friendly adventure about a young girl who travels the universe in search of her missing father. Sadly though, instead of wrinkling time, the film seemingly manages to stretch it. Making a story that is an hour and fifty minutes feel like four hours and none of them that entertaining.
Ava DuVernay made such a strong impression with her debut film Selma. The film was incredibly powerful and perfectly captured the era. Wrinkle In Time had the potential to have power and emotion from the tale of a daughter who feels lost in the world and is desperate to reconnect with her missing father. Unfortunately, that potential is lost the moment the film transfers from the real world to a series of CGI-generated planets filled with giant Oprah Winfreys.
Similar to the three Mrs's who guide Meg (Storm Reid) on her quest, DuVernay has assembled some considerable star power and Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine do their best with the material but they are faced with a number of unintentionally laughable moments such as Pine having to earnestly deliver the line "Love is the frequency!" and it is impossible to have characters shout "Shut up Meg" and not think of Family Guy!
Recent years have seen genuine child talent emerge such as Daphne Keen (Logan) and Millie Bobbie Brown (Stranger Things) but it is unlikely that 2018 will bring a more annoying screen child than Meg's younger brother and child prodigy Charles Wallace. By the time audiences have heard someone shout "Charles Wallace! Charles Wallace!" for the hundredth time, they will want him to disappear into a black hole!
The final disappointment was finding out that after several references to the universal evil called "The IT", there was no crossover with the Stephen King novel and Pennywise the Clown was not the ultimate bad guy. Which could have saved the film and given it a whole new context. Instead, it is as deflating as IT's final form in the TV movie and is strangely voiced by David Oleyowo which means the ultimate evil is voiced by Martin Luther King!
A Wrinkle In Time? More like a colossal waste of time!

1 star

2001 A Space Odyssey - review

It is a true landmark moment in cinematic sci-fi and it is easy to see where the inspiration for several elements of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar came from, particularly the trippy final act.

And that is what the experience of 2001 A Space Odyssey is. Whereas other sci-Fi films can take you on an adventure or a journey into outer space, Kubrick takes you on the ultimate trip.

Whilst stunning to look at and immerse yourself in on as big a screen as possible, I can't help but feel as emotionally distant and detached to the story as HAL 9000 is to his crewmates aboard the Jupiter mission.

4 stars

Interstellar - review

With 2010's Inception Christopher Nolan explored the inner mind. With Interstellar, Nolan has decided to "dream a little bigger darling" and has set his sights on outer space to deliver a grand, awe-inspiring, wondrous 2014 A Space Odyssey.

The McConaissance goes out of this world as Cooper, a former pilot/engineer who now makes his living as a farmer on an Earth that is dying. He is given the chance to lead a mission to search for inhabitable planets beyond our solar system using Interstellar travel.

This leads to the central crux of Interstellar. Humanity versus the human race.

Several times Cooper is reminded of the sacrifices he must make to complete the mission:

"I've got kids, professor.
Then get out there and save them. We must reach far beyond our own lifespans. We must think not as individuals but as a species."

"You might have to decide between seeing your children again and the future of the human race."

On the one hand you have a mission to save the human race, on the other it is boiled down to our humanity and own individual survival instinct and Cooper's will to keep his promise to see his children again.

The awful truth of what this will take is demonstrated following a message from home after a visit to one of the new planet's surface.

To go into the plot and science in any more detail would do the movie a disservice and also possibly require a PHD as there is so much more to this film than the trailers have given away.

This is the type of film where plot and dialogue can take a back seat in the space shuttle as you strap in for the audio visual experience that Nolan, Zimmer and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema have dreamed up (sometimes literally as there are times when Hans Zimmer's booming score overpowers the dialogue).

It also wears its influences on its sleeves like a host of NASA mission patches, with the biggest patch belonging to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Not only are there certain themes and plot similarities between them but also the A.I. robot companions resemble the black monoliths plus both films reliance on practical effects in filming that ground them in reality whilst simultaneously taking us to galaxies and universes we could only dream of.

It is said that Man's reach exceeds his grasp but when that man is Christopher Nolan and he is reaching for the stars, the result is still an extremely powerful, moving, exhilarating cinematic experience.

4 stars