Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

I pride myself on being able to follow time-travel movies. A lot of them have paradoxes but the reason for this is to simplify the story so that the audience won't be confused. I can understand that because usually a confusing movie plot equates to an unentertaining movie. "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is just such a case. Not only is it hard to follow the story but also it is dark (even for a Tim Burton film) and more attention was given to the visuals. While a visual spectacle is typical of Burton, he has been able to find a decent balance in the past between his live-action film stories and his unique visual style such as "Edward Scissorhands", "Sleepy Hollow" and "Big Eyes". Even if the balance is off, as is the case most of the time, a Tim Burton live action film is still somewhat enjoyable such as "Batman" or "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Because of the complex story unfortunately, "Miss Peregrine" falls short of what I was expecting.

From what I can tell, the filmmakers created a more confusing story than its literary counterpart. Maybe if they had been more faithful to the book, the movie would have been better. In many fantasy films, we experience a new universe through the eyes of the protagonist. Therefore, he or she needs to be just as much in the dark about the new reality they are discovering as their audience. Jake is one step ahead of the audience unfortunately because of his grandfather's bedtime stories. He has known many of the children's names and peculiarities since he was six years old while the film's audience is just finding them out. This disconnection between the protagonist and the audience can be disastrous. We need to relate to someone while watching the movie. Imagine if Harry Potter knew all about Hogwarts but never knew it actually existed until Hagrid showed up. A protagonist's enthrallment when shared by his audience can create a memorable cinematic experience. The concept of time travel in "Miss Peregrine" is quite confusing. The switch from 1943 to 2016 seems to happen randomly. It wasn't until the middle of the movie that I realized that the cave was the entrance to the loop. This gave way to a climax that was equally confusing if not more so. I don't think this movie will be all that great to show kids, mostly because of the scene where the Hollows are eating eyes. Tim Burton movies have been this dark before such as "Batman Returns" and "Mars Attacks!" but I was under the assumption that this film was geared towards a larger audience. I also had a problem with one special effects scene. The quality was not the problem but rather it felt out of place when compared to other scenes. When Enoch brings the two inanimate objects to life, they appeared to be stop motion animated. All other such special effects such as the CG skeletons in the climax were rendered in a way we are used to. This irregularity had no purpose from what I could tell other than to showcase some classic Tim Burton-style animation. Also in the climax, the people at the pier sure seem to act quite calm considering a bunch of skeletons are fighting some invisible Hollows. That really bothered me. The doppelganger scene with Barron disguised as Jake could have been much more dramatic and suspenseful.

Not only was the story lacking but so was the acting. The worst performance came from Chris O'Dowd while the best performance (which is also best aspect of the movie overall) came from Samuel L. Jackson. His best scene is when he has Jake hostage. Every other actor didn't offer very much in terms of entertainment but they certainly had the potential. How could Asa Butterfield for example be so good in "Hugo" and "Ender's Game" but so uninteresting in this movie? I didn't even recognize Rupert Everett as the ornithologist.

By the way, this is only the third Tim Burton-directed film without Danny Elfman has the musical composer. Burton has made a time travel movie before with the "Planet of the Apes" remake and that movie was easy to understand. "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" wasn't easy to follow and that of course affects its entertainment value. I knew going into this movie that the design would outshine the narrative. That is normal for a Tim Burton film as mentioned but I wasn't prepared with the amount of imbalance between both cinematic aspects. The film will appeal to those fantasy lovers who love a good-looking movie. I, on the other hand, prefer a story to visuals.

3 Stars