Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Review

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine: "Because our abilities don't fit in the outside world, we live in places like this, where no one can find us."

    Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is directed by Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice) and stars Asa Butterfield as Jake Portman, Eva Green as Miss Peregrine, Samuel L. Jackson as Barron, Ella Purnell as Emma Bloom, Judi Dench as Miss Avocet, Allison Janney as Dr. Golan, Rupert Everett as the Ornithologist, Terence Stamp as Abe Portman, Chris O'Dowd as Franklin Portman, Finlay MacMillan as Enoch O'Conner, Lauren McCrostie as Olive Abroholos Elephanta, Cameron King as Millard Nullings, Milo Parker as Hugh Apiston, Raffiella Chapman as Claire Densmore, Joseph and Thomas Odwell as the Masked Twins, Georgia Pemberton as Fiona Fruanfeld, Hayden Keeler-Stone as Horace Somnusson, and Pixie Davies as Bronwyn Bruntley.

Basically, the majority of the cast are talented kids.

    After his grandfather dies a mysterious and unnatural death, Jake Portman is left clues by him to go to Wales, where he used to live in, to track down more information about a strange home that he used to tell stories about.. Specifically, this home is meant to be for children with odd and wonder-like abilities. It's also run by headmistress Miss Peregrine, a scrupulous yet admirable mother figure to these kids. Jake, desperate to find answers and closure, goes to Wales to find this home. Through a turn of otherworldly events, Jake finds the home and is given quite possibly more answers than he wanted. Jake, as new and confusing as the situation is, realizes that he has to help Miss Peregrine and her children fight off monsters known as Hollows, tall lanky creatures who crave the eyeballs of people, and Barron, a crazy doctor who wants to kill Miss Peregrine so that he can live forever.

Hmm...a place lead by a charismatic and experienced adult that teaches kids how to use their abilities and helps them out? Maybe there is a resemblance.

    Sorry if the description for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was confusing. It's difficult for me to fill in the gaps without spoiling major plot keys from the movie. Actually, I think the end result after reading my description kind of sums up how I felt about this movie: a little too muddled. The title alone got me excited for this movie. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was originally a book (not sure if it was meant for children) and I did not read it. After seeing the film version, I'm honestly interested in this world that was set up. The amalgamation of an alternate timeline (1943) concept and invisible monsters that want to eat eyeballs all seems extremely fascinating. It's all so...unique! Not to say that the topic of time travel or superpowers is unique in film, but, with Tim Burton's imaginative vision, the idea is really cool. However, the problem doesn't lie in the aesthetics or idea of the film, but rather in the storytelling. There isn't one specific tone to the film. Sometimes it goes from the crazy weird fun that we usually see in Tim Burton movies to boring exposition scenes that are clearly set up by screenwriters to push the movie forward.

Whoa! Is this a children's movie or for adults? That's scary!

    The perfect example of those boring scenes in Miss Peregrine's (I'll refer to the movie title like this now because it's just too long) is Jack. Yeah, I know he isn't a scene. What I mean is that every scene he's in is mainly him figuring stuff out. Until the last 15 or 20 minutes is when he really starts putting himself to use. That's incredibly unfortunate considering he's the main character. THE MAIN CHARACTER! I'm sorry, but either Asa Butterfield didn't feel his character at all or the character of Jack is lifeless. Taking Asa's filmography into account, I would rather choose the latter of those two. We follow Jack's journey to this awesome world that's been set up for us, then all of a sudden, once the day is over, he returns to his own time at a hotel with his dad for like 20 minutes or so. It's such a change of pace that it took me by surprise and I was bored to watch Jake walk around wander about the island. There really was no need for him to go back to his own time besides the set up of a villain who doesn't feel like the real threat: Samuel L. Jackson's Barron. In reality, the Hollows are the bad guys. Even though they're sort of like henchmen, they do what they want. They aren't being controlled. They kill whatever they want.

I'm not alone! Miss Peregrine wants to strangle him too!

    This brings me to the rest of the characters. Sharing the name with the title, Miss Peregrine, played brilliantly by Eva Green, is the most interesting and notable character involved with Miss Peregrine's. She's very articulate in how she says and does things. You can see that her character cares about the peculiar children that she takes care of by the way she treats them and understands them. But damn, she's in the movie for about an hour, maybe up to 70 minutes? This movie is 127 minutes! Don't quote me on how long she's in the movie. It honestly just felt as if she was a secondary character that is only there because the home is named after her. The children that were being taken care of, for the most part, were charming too. I enjoyed learning about the children's powers like plant manipulation and super strength. However, this isn't to say that they saved the Miss Peregrine's as a whole. The most interesting characters felt like they were in the background. Obviously, there's more information in the book, but to translate a film like this correctly, at least from the tone that Tim Burton wants to go for, the characters that matter, like the children and Miss Peregrine, need to be a bit more characteristically exposed. They should have more to do with the film than they what they had here.

Miss Peregrine: "Well would you look at that. Our time in this movie is almost up."

    Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a film that seems like a perfect fit for Tim Burton's style of wonder and amazement. What this movie failed in, though, is the storytelling. Not all books make good movies. Fortunately, this isn't a bad movie. Unfortunately, it's a disappointment to me. I could've seen this being a Chronicles of Narnia or Harry Potter-esque type of series, knowing that this is the first in a trilogy of books. I'll still vote for another one of these movies. I really would like to see more of the world that these kids live in. Hell, I'll give up one eye to a Hollow! Just one...

3.1/5

PRO

• Miss Peregrine and her peculiar children
• The fantastical world that surrounds this home
• Unique and interesting premise

CON

• Boring as hell lead character
• Tone is all over the place
• Not enough of the compelling characters

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of fantasy action/violence and peril

Click here to watch the trailer

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is in theaters everywhere now

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