Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children Review

PG13: Intense Sequences of Fantasy Action/Violence and Peril 

20th Century Fox, TSG Entertainment, Chernin Entertainment 

2 Hrs and 7 Minutes

Cast: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O’Dowd, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson

REVIEW: It is that time again. It is that time around September a Tim Burton film is released. Its kind of ironic how a peculiar visionary as Burton himself has directed a film named Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. Something about that title has Tim Burton written all over it. Adapted from the popular fantasy novel by Ransom Riggs, Burton’s newest film has us going back to his roots of filmmaking. Which isn’t much of a great thing sometimes.

After the death of his beloved grandfather, 16-year-old Jacob "Jake" Portman is forced to travel to a mysterious island in order to discover the truth of what really happened. Jake's ordinary life takes an extraordinary turn as the childhood fairytales he heard from his grandfather start to become more plausible. After stumbling into what seems to be a different world, Jake is introduced to the extraordinary Miss Peregrine and her peculiar children at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. But when what seems to be a fairytale takes a horrific turn, Jake is forced to make a life altering decision in order to protect the ones he loves from the monsters of his grandfather's past, the creepy Hollows and the dangerous Wights led by the terrifying Mr. Barron.

THE GOOD: Tim Burton is back to form. With his previous film Big Eyes, there was little to no sense of Tim Burtonesque imagery. It didn’t fully go weird as he usually does, which sort of work for that biopic. Now with this, Burton goes back to weird and disturbing imagery that is visually stunning to see throughout the whole film. He returns to his old roots of filmmaking varying from his style, his different use of effects, and even his setting. This is the second film by Burton to be filmed in Tampa Bay Florida (the first being Edward Scissorhands) and they use the setting to their advantage. His effects comes and goes different ways. There’s a lot of use of CG and then some practical, but then there is a brief moment where he integrates stop motion. And when I mean stop motion I mean the Beetlejuice effect looking of stop motion. You briefly feel the use of 80s effects and its amazing.

The artistry with production design is amazing. There is so much detailing and color integrated into the world he creates with the home where the children lives and everywhere else is dull and darkened. It is very symbolic of how Jake experiences this world and how it impacts his life where the Home gives him meaning where everywhere else has a dark blue color. The color is bright and lively especially on our protagonists and with the Hollows they embody a grey and white color scheme. The imagery is beautiful and the 3D gives it a better effect with the experience.

There is a lot of character within the lead Jake. You see his growth from being a teenager bonded with his grandfather and having him on a personal journey to find closure with his family and within himself. As much Jake is shown to be a great protagonist, the antagonist played by L. Jackson steals the show. He tends to do this with every film he’s in whether he is a protagonist or antagonist. He is one of the best actors in Hollywood to chew up scenery but he does a damn great job doing it.

THE BAD: As much as I say Tim Burton is back in his form of filmmaking, that also goes to the account of storytelling too. Throughout his films from the past, Burton has always been known to have you enticed within the new world we are introduced to while setting up enough character and story. Once you’re reeled into the world for the first two acts, he just goes straight up insane with the third by saying fuck it let’s end this with an action sequence. Give me one film besides Big Eyes, Ed Wood, and Big Fish where Burton doesn’t finish his film in an action sequence and loses its focus of the story. Granted some of those films have much more memorable engaging first two acts to forgive the third. But now he’s done it so often that its both too familiar and tiring on both ends that it becomes unforgivable. The film tries so hard throwing darts on a wall to see what style sticks and a majority of them don’t. At one moment the action is whimsy, then its frightening, then its gory, but one moment it does something new yet terrible. There is an overlong sequence where Burton succumbs to the modern trend of dubstep while having skeletons fight Hollows. Just imagine the scene of Hot Topic clashing with the music within a Topshop and that’s what you get. That’s exactly what this film does by its final sequence and its truly a disappointment to see.

Just like his previous animated feature Frankenweenie, we focus on a central character that is interesting but by the time we see characters around him that have different personalities and abilities you’re much more invested in them than your main lead. The rest of the child actors are fun to see with the varying mutant powers they have. You really want to see more of them more than you want to see Jake at times. Jake is a well developed character don’t get me wrong, but the kids are much more interesting and we don’t have enough time to get to know them with the exception of three. But Asa Butterfield has one tone throughout the entire movie and his performance is bad. He doesn't emote as his dialogue tells him to be. When danger is afoot, he's unimpressed. When he meets the children, he's unimpressed. WHEN HE THWARTS BARRON HE'S UNIMPRESSED. You just wanna go KID PLEASE GIVE A LITTLE BIT OF A FUCK!

You can notably tell that the relationship of Burton and Helena Boham Carter has taken on a toll on him because Eva Green’s performance as Miss Peregrine is as similar in both mannerisms and delivery as Carter. If they were still living together and still had a close relationship, Carter would’ve easily been Miss Peregrine. Green even has that scowling look Carter is known for. Green does a great job with her role for she should be truly the central character since the film is named after her and her children. Not even Miss Peregrine has enough screen time in this two hour film. Though Burton did work with her before in Dark Shadows, her performance makes you miss Carter. The film even has Dame Judi Dench and even she has a faster screen time than a cameo in a Marvel stinger. Tim Burton really gives her the Jack Nicholson and its unfortunate yet predictable.

LAST STATEMENT: Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children has Tim Burton back to his full form of visionary weirdness which is beautiful and also his lack of a competent conclusion of storytelling which is exhausting by this point.

Rating: 2/5 | 47%

Super Scene: Enoch shows his peculiarity to Jake