Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children - directed by Tim Burton
Here's a movie that desperately wants to be a sort of X-Men meets Harry Potter.
The fusion itself is pretty successful.
It has a school house mansion, a charismatic head teacher, a device that means ordinary folk cannot enter and of course a bunch of kids with special powers.
It is less successful at knowing what audience it is aiming for.
The Harry Potter movies had the benefit of coming out over a ten year period.
That each one grew a little darker than the one before worked out well for the largely young fanbase who also grew a little older in pace.
"Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" has no such advantage and has to pitch itself just right with the first shot.
Trouble is it is way too dark for pre-teens and is possibly a little too whimsical for anyone else.
Not to say that it isn't without merit - it has a lot of good going for it.
Just enough in fact to make its ultimate failure all the more frustrating.
Basically this is a coming of age story in which a young man feels alienated from family and schoolmates alike.
The only person he relates to his his Grandfather (Terence Stamp) who has told him fanciful tales of escaping giant beasts in Poland to attend a school on an island populated with children of freakish abilities such as invisibility and the dubious talent of having bees fly out of their mouths.
When the old man is killed by an horrific beast with sharpened limbs, no face and tentacles for hair Jake undergoes psychiatric help.
Completely understandable I am sure you'll agree.
His psychiatrist suggests time away and so Jake and his Father head off to an Island off the coast of Wales.
The same island that his Grandfather told him about.
Jake again finds that he doesn't fit in until he locates the ruins of the school his Grandfather told him about and discovers that the very same children of special ability are still there.
They exist in a time loop that sees them live out the same day every day.
It resets itself just before a German bomb falls from the sky to demolish the house and kill them all.
In the real world it is accepted that the destruction and death happened of course.
This film is truly a hodge podge.
It plucks aspects of horror, fantasy, period drama and superhero movies and stirs them together.
It works a lot better than it could have.
The school and its inhabitants are interesting - so much so that every time Jake moves out of the time loop house and back to reality with his Father (a totally wasted Chris O'Dowd) the movie sags horribly.
This movie works far better when the weirdos at the school are front and centre.
One in particular.
Miss Peregrine the guardian of the home is a genuinely fascinating figure.
She is dark and mysterious yet selfless and kind.
A good start with this character was the casting of Eva Green in the role.
Green seems to be able to effortlessly add intrigue to portrayals.
We have seen her with violence simmering under the surface ready to explode at any moment (Artemisia in "300: Rise of an Empire") and as a manipulative and potently sexual femme fatale (Ava in "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For")
Her debut in 2003 in Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" saw her as a naive, virginal object of desire.
Then there is the role that really raised her profile - Vesper in the excellent Bond outing "Casino Royale".
There she showed elements of all of these traits and instantly became my favourite Bond leading lady.
As Miss Peregrine she is in much lighter territory even if the movie around her is not.
Green is very good and dominates every scene that she is in.
But she isn't nearly enough unfortunately.
In her stead Ella Purnell takes the female lead duties and in fairness to the young actor she does a great job.
Purnell plays Emma who has command of air but must wear lead boots to stay grounded.
The time loop that prevents the German bomb from killing everyone is explored in some excellent scenes showing Miss Peregrine with her ever present chain watch reversing time, dispatching one of the toothy tentacle headed beasts that appears in the same place every day and keeping the children safe and amused.
As Emma and Jake grow closer Samuel L Jackson's Barron and his creepy squad of eyeless cohorts and their tentacle beasts (called Hollows) search out the school.
They need to eat the eyes of the peculiar children in order to recover from horrific mutations caused by an experiment gone awry.
And there's that darkness.
When this film is dark it is very, very dark indeed.
I don't have a problem with this at all generally but in the case of this film my sense was that the director and the script might be a poor match.
Jane Goldman - famous for several collaborations with director Matthew Vaughan including "Kick-Ass", "X-Men: First Class" and "Kingsmen: The Secret Service" wrote the script for Miss Peregrine.
Tim Burton sure loves the darker aspects but seems less interested in the fun ones.
Goldman knows how to write a well paced flick full of killer scenes but my feeling is that Burton is a poor fit for her particular tone and sense of fun.
Think about how dark some of the stuff in "Kick-Ass" and "Kingsmen" is and yet both films are stacks of fun.
Burton finds a little bit of levity here and there but always goes back to the well of darkness.
It's an uneasy fit watching Samuel L Jackson and his cronies sitting down to a meal of hundreds of childrens eyeballs so soon after a scene in which a roomful of children watch in delight as one of their group projects a movie from his own eyes.
I should mention that Jackson seems to be having quite a bit of fun in this role.
What Burton does bring to the film is his usual visual flair.
There are some beautifully executed scenes in and around a sunken ship and the scenes of the German bomb plummeting to earth are great.
Also the action laden finale pulls in a little Jason and the Argonauts, tosses in some Avengers tag team stuff and is a lot of fun.
Had the preceding ninety odd minutes been just a little tighter in the pacing with a more consistent tone this effective ending might have felt like the icing on the cake rather than the cherry right at the bottom of the jar.
There is about enough fun and imagination here for a movie half an hour shorter but within a two hour movie there are too many dull, wasted minutes.
The stellar work from Green, Jackson and Purnell deserves a better film and so does the source material.
I almost wish this movie had been less effective in the moments when it does shine then the frustration of the good movie that is dying get out from under the bloat would be less pronounced.
RATING: 70 / 100
CONCLUSION: A disappointment albeit with some genuinely excellent moments and at least three performances to savour.
Starring: Eva Green, Samuel L Jackson, Asa Butterfield, Ella Purnell, Allison Janney, Terence Stamp, Rupert Everett, Kim Dickens, Judi Dench, Chris O'Dowd, Finlay MacMillan, Lauren McCrostie, Hayden Keeler-Stone, Georgia Pemberton, O-Lan Jones
Screenplay: Jane Goldman (novel by Ransom Riggs)
Music Score by: Michael Higham & Matthew Margeson
Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel
Cinematography: Bruno Delbonnel
Edited by: Chris Lebenzon
Running Time: 127 minutes
Language: English
Rated: M - Dark, scary imagery and violence
Running Time: 127 minutes
Language: English
Rated: M - Dark, scary imagery and violence
The fusion itself is pretty successful.
It has a school house mansion, a charismatic head teacher, a device that means ordinary folk cannot enter and of course a bunch of kids with special powers.
It is less successful at knowing what audience it is aiming for.
The Harry Potter movies had the benefit of coming out over a ten year period.
That each one grew a little darker than the one before worked out well for the largely young fanbase who also grew a little older in pace.
"Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" has no such advantage and has to pitch itself just right with the first shot.
Trouble is it is way too dark for pre-teens and is possibly a little too whimsical for anyone else.
Not to say that it isn't without merit - it has a lot of good going for it.
Just enough in fact to make its ultimate failure all the more frustrating.
Basically this is a coming of age story in which a young man feels alienated from family and schoolmates alike.
The only person he relates to his his Grandfather (Terence Stamp) who has told him fanciful tales of escaping giant beasts in Poland to attend a school on an island populated with children of freakish abilities such as invisibility and the dubious talent of having bees fly out of their mouths.
When the old man is killed by an horrific beast with sharpened limbs, no face and tentacles for hair Jake undergoes psychiatric help.
Completely understandable I am sure you'll agree.
His psychiatrist suggests time away and so Jake and his Father head off to an Island off the coast of Wales.
The same island that his Grandfather told him about.
Jake again finds that he doesn't fit in until he locates the ruins of the school his Grandfather told him about and discovers that the very same children of special ability are still there.
They exist in a time loop that sees them live out the same day every day.
It resets itself just before a German bomb falls from the sky to demolish the house and kill them all.
In the real world it is accepted that the destruction and death happened of course.
 |
| The always terrific Eva Green as Miss Peregrine |
It plucks aspects of horror, fantasy, period drama and superhero movies and stirs them together.
It works a lot better than it could have.
The school and its inhabitants are interesting - so much so that every time Jake moves out of the time loop house and back to reality with his Father (a totally wasted Chris O'Dowd) the movie sags horribly.
This movie works far better when the weirdos at the school are front and centre.
One in particular.
Miss Peregrine the guardian of the home is a genuinely fascinating figure.
She is dark and mysterious yet selfless and kind.
A good start with this character was the casting of Eva Green in the role.
Green seems to be able to effortlessly add intrigue to portrayals.
We have seen her with violence simmering under the surface ready to explode at any moment (Artemisia in "300: Rise of an Empire") and as a manipulative and potently sexual femme fatale (Ava in "Sin City: A Dame To Kill For")
Her debut in 2003 in Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" saw her as a naive, virginal object of desire.
Then there is the role that really raised her profile - Vesper in the excellent Bond outing "Casino Royale".
There she showed elements of all of these traits and instantly became my favourite Bond leading lady.
As Miss Peregrine she is in much lighter territory even if the movie around her is not.
Green is very good and dominates every scene that she is in.
But she isn't nearly enough unfortunately.
In her stead Ella Purnell takes the female lead duties and in fairness to the young actor she does a great job.
Purnell plays Emma who has command of air but must wear lead boots to stay grounded.
The time loop that prevents the German bomb from killing everyone is explored in some excellent scenes showing Miss Peregrine with her ever present chain watch reversing time, dispatching one of the toothy tentacle headed beasts that appears in the same place every day and keeping the children safe and amused.
As Emma and Jake grow closer Samuel L Jackson's Barron and his creepy squad of eyeless cohorts and their tentacle beasts (called Hollows) search out the school.
They need to eat the eyes of the peculiar children in order to recover from horrific mutations caused by an experiment gone awry.
And there's that darkness.
When this film is dark it is very, very dark indeed.
I don't have a problem with this at all generally but in the case of this film my sense was that the director and the script might be a poor match.
Jane Goldman - famous for several collaborations with director Matthew Vaughan including "Kick-Ass", "X-Men: First Class" and "Kingsmen: The Secret Service" wrote the script for Miss Peregrine.
Tim Burton sure loves the darker aspects but seems less interested in the fun ones.
Goldman knows how to write a well paced flick full of killer scenes but my feeling is that Burton is a poor fit for her particular tone and sense of fun.
Think about how dark some of the stuff in "Kick-Ass" and "Kingsmen" is and yet both films are stacks of fun.
Burton finds a little bit of levity here and there but always goes back to the well of darkness.
It's an uneasy fit watching Samuel L Jackson and his cronies sitting down to a meal of hundreds of childrens eyeballs so soon after a scene in which a roomful of children watch in delight as one of their group projects a movie from his own eyes.
I should mention that Jackson seems to be having quite a bit of fun in this role.
 |
| Asa Butterfield and Ella Purnell (left) the peculiar kids (centre) and Samuel L Jackson (right) |
There are some beautifully executed scenes in and around a sunken ship and the scenes of the German bomb plummeting to earth are great.
Also the action laden finale pulls in a little Jason and the Argonauts, tosses in some Avengers tag team stuff and is a lot of fun.
Had the preceding ninety odd minutes been just a little tighter in the pacing with a more consistent tone this effective ending might have felt like the icing on the cake rather than the cherry right at the bottom of the jar.
There is about enough fun and imagination here for a movie half an hour shorter but within a two hour movie there are too many dull, wasted minutes.
The stellar work from Green, Jackson and Purnell deserves a better film and so does the source material.
I almost wish this movie had been less effective in the moments when it does shine then the frustration of the good movie that is dying get out from under the bloat would be less pronounced.
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