Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's could have done with a little more peculiarity. I understand that the lead is our door into this fantastical world, but a character can be relatable without being downright boring. Not an outright bad movie, but certainly not the one to put Tim Burton back on track.

Eva Green is golden but under-utilised, Sam Jackson can barely talk through his fake teeth, the creature designs are fantastic but pulled off with some very poor CGI. There is a little stop-motion to counter this, but again, it's not used to the degree it should have been. Which is really an apt description for the whole thing. Over an over, Miss Peregrine's hints at a great movie buried somewhere within it, but what we end up with is an ill-paced mess. The only truly engaging character momets of the whole story are dropped as soon as they crop up in favour of the "Good VS Evil" rhetoric you've seen a million times before.

Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.

Well one certainly cannot accuse filmmaker Tim Burton from straying away from his trademark bizarre movie-making playbook. Perhaps Burton’s best asset when it comes to his brand of distinctive cinema is to faithfully maintain that solid sense of oddness in the manner for which he presents his randomly spry, off-kilter narratives? There was always this consistent understanding that Burton enthusiastically embraces the whimsical peculiarities of his colorful, cockeyed characterizations. Naturally, the eccentric Burton would be drawn to yet another off-balance project that is right up his weirdly imaginative alley. Hence, in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children the notoriously quirky director is true to form as he presents another delightfully macabre and freakish showcase that will definitely appeal to the darkened nature of the kiddie crowd.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the big screen adaptation of Ranson Rigg’s popular young adults trilogy. The film is an instant magnet for Burton’s off-the-cuff style and standard of warped whimsy. The Sci-Fi enhanced children’s fantasy is highlighted effectively by visually arousing set decorations, breath-taking CGI special effects, eye-popping costumes and an overall wonderment of interestingly deformed yet capable super-powered youngsters with unusual gifts that define their unique identities. Screenwriter Jane Goldman (“Stardust”) dutifully captures the misguided magic of Rigg’s best-selling novel brought to life that is very reminiscent of an atmospheric Harry Potter-esque universe where one can easily detect that stimulating Hogswarts vibe bursting at the seams. The only viable knock on Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is that Burton has explored this twisted territory before thus giving the familiar illusion that he is making the same movie over again but with some updated dressing. Still, the surreal stamp of Burton’s animated movie mindset is enough to recommend the erra...

The innocent peculiar children versus the monstrous peculiar adults.

I thought it should have been a Steven Spielberg film, but he would have compromised on the visually frightening negative characters. Particularly from the little children's angle who are the regular target audience for a theme like this. Even in his recent 'The BFG', you know how the giants were portrayed. So Tim Burton was the right choice and he did his best. But not everybody agrees on that, even I was slightly disappointed. I mean technically it sounded so awesome, but the story was not that impressive. Because of too familiarity, except the peculiar characters.

It was based on the young adult book of the same name. The story of a boy named Jake. After his grandfather's murder, he goes to Wales to find the children from an island home about the stories he had heard when he was a little. He discovers they are intentionally stuck in a time loop to avoid their enemies from striking them. But what they feared is about the come true, so now how they plan to defeat after half a century hiding from them is to be told in the rest of the segment.

As a children's film fan, I wanted to like it, but not fully satisfied. It was a two hour long film, the first half was an introduction that we saw everything from its trailers and teasers. So I lost interest in those parts, but once the clash between the good and bad had began, the film started to give something new. Again the final battle at the fair should have been designed better. I thought Samuel L. Jackson was not untilised well.

The major issue with the film was the narration not trying to take a big step in the story development. Felt like they are aiming for a sequel, so they are avoiding to give out everything in here itself. Similar to the first 'Twilight' film, which was too boring drama. It is almost out of the big screen now and the rating further going to drop. The film critics bashed it, but seems most of the people and film fa...

Before I start I should perhaps mention that, although I consider this a family movie, it is perhaps a bit on the scary side for the youngest member of the family. Anyway, personally I liked the movie and so did my kids.

It did have time travel in it which I, in general, utterly dislike but it is a Tim Burton movie so it was already a foregone conclusion that it would be a wee bit bizarre anyway and it had Eva Green, which is one of my favorites, in it so that kind of made up for the time travel crap.

The movie starts of by Jacob watching his grandfather being murdered by some mysterious being that only he can see. Of course everyone believes that he was hallucinating and so off we go with hospitals and shrinks and so on. Finally his parents allow him to travel to the island of Cairnholm in search of the mysterious Miss Peregrine.

From their on we wander into the wonderful world of “Burtonesque” bizarreness, fantasy and general weirdness. Naturally Jacob meets Miss Peregrine and her kids. Kids who each have some peculiar talent each more weird than the other.

Naturally there are a some bad guys lurking in the shadows as well. Bad guys intent on destroying Miss Peregrine’s shelter and … well, let us just say that they are not exactly concerned for the children’s wellbeing. I liked the bad guys. Both in their half human form and their more scary monster form. I especially liked Samuel L. Jackson as Barron, the boss bad guy. He really made an excellent performance.

The one person I did not like was Jacob’s father. Apart from being a jerk he looked like he was on drugs or sleeping pills throughout the entire movie.

On the whole this was perhaps not the best of Tim Burtons movies but it was still a good and enjoyable one. Decent special effects. The story worked despite the enormous paradoxes introduced by the time travel stuff. The characters did a fair performance. I did not regret the 2+ hours I spent on watching it.

Despite the flaws, and some less than positive interpretations, it is a good film.

Tim Burton has already accustomed us to a surreal and fantastic style, and he almost always gives us very good films. This movie is no exception, giving us good entertainment. It's based on a book, which I've never read and I don't know what it's like, although I've heard that it's frankly more interesting than this movie. However, Tim Burton has already shown that he doesn't care much about this, in previous works that we have seen.

The script is surreal and fantastic, based on a teenager's trip to the British Isles, to see his grandfather's place of origin, recently deceased. There, he discovers the ruins of the orphanage where his grandfather grew up, destroyed by German bombing and never rebuilt. And later he discovers that his childhood friends and the orphanage's governess are still alive and living in a time loop created the day the house was razed. And that there is a danger that will threaten them all.

Overall, the film is quite satisfying, entertains quite well, and has a beautiful, well-written story. This is due, in large part, to the way in which he tackles difficult topics such as mourning and the family relationship between a father and a son. There are some little-explained details, loose ends, situations that don't get the attention they could have, and I thought the film takes a while to "gear" and really capture our interest.

Among the cast of this film, no one stands out like the impeccable Eva Green. The actress has what it takes for the character that fits her, and she knows how to make the most of her charisma and the good quality of the material given to her by the screenwriter. Terence Stamp was also in good shape and did a good job. Among the younger actors, it is Ella Purnell who stands out the most on a positive note, although Finlay MacMillan and Lauren McCrostie also give us very satisfactory performances. Unfortunately, as far as the cast...

This reminded me a bit of the "Golden Compass" (2007) as Asa Butterfield ("Jake") finds himself drawn to a sleepy island where he encounters the eponymous, magical, Eva Green who hosts a group of children of all ages with special quirks who live in a time loop - the same day from 1943 - which should ensure that they remain safe from the predatory "Barron" (a wonderfully over-the-top Samuel L. Jackson) and his menacing monsters who are bent on capturing "Miss Peregrine" and eliminating the youngsters. It's a bit too long, but once it gets up an head of steam then Butterfield is an engaging hero well supported by the odd appearances from Dame Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, his father Chris O'Dowd and his inspirational grandfather Terence Stamp. The stories are enjoyably episodic, each child has their five minutes of fame to demonstrate their skills and personality, there's a soupçon of romance, a bit of mischief, teenage jealousy and yes, even the usually rather wooden Eva Green brings a little charisma to the screen with her Sherlock Holmes-style pipe before a denouement that knits it all together nicely. I like that this is trying to be a more sophisticated story for younger folks. Some of the issues - i.e. WWII - have resonance beyond the frivolity of the story and the increasing sense of menace is well developed by Tim Burton without becoming the stuff of sleepless nights.

A bunch of teens and children with weird special abilities like superheroes all in one house. Miss Peregrine is pretty much there mom. I hope they make a sequel because I would like to see more of there abilities then they showed in this movie. It feels like it was like a tease showing us as little as possible at what they can do.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children offers a fascinating time-travel fantasy with strong visuals and decent performances, though it suffers from slow pacing and underwhelming conflict. Logical inconsistencies and overlooked details—especially regarding time-travel consequences—detract from the story’s believability. Despite its flaws, the film remains an enjoyable watch for fantasy lovers, though it leaves room for improvement in storytelling depth.

Read the full review here: (Indonesian version : alunauwie.com) and (English version : uwiepuspita.com)