Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
(Tim Burton)
Tim Burton is at his best and most creative when he is restricted by budget and practical effects. Edward Scissorhands is a cold film, but underneath it has heart and brings warmth to the characters and story. You see the creativity in the set designs, practical "inventions" and all the hedge artwork, to the point where I felt like I knew those suburbs and lived there. Give Burton creative freedom and the means to do so with budget and unlimited technology, he loses a sense of realism. The more creativity you give him, the less interested you become in his creations. Alive in Wonderland gave Burton a blank palette to bring his visions to the screen and mix them with what Lewis Carroll imagined. The result is a sense of disconnect. I don't know this place, or how it should feel. It looks pretty, but ends of being hollow. I had the same feelings when I watched Maleficent and Oz, The Great & Powerful.
In Burton's Miss Peregrine, he finds a pretty decent balance. Incorporating both the CGI elements and more something practical gives the film the otherworldly feel he wanted, but doesn't distract the viewer too much into the nonsensical. The film sees a young boy named Jake who doesn't seem to fit in with his family or school life. His closest friend was his grandfather, Abe, who would tell him these stories about monsters and children with odd special abilities who lived at a school he use to visit. When his uncle dies under mysterious circumstances, it forces Jake to go searching for this school to see if these stories are true. What he finds is beyond his imagination. Can he save the children and their protector, Miss Peregrine from an evil force on the hunt to destroy them?
Yes, this story suits Burton's whimsical style perfectly, but that's not enough. I need a story to invest in and this film has sprinkles of that, but as a whole feels empty. I'm not familiar with this story and hoped the film would adequately show the world these kids live in to me. I only got a sense of that, in hazy spots. I know there is a great story here in the pages of the book, the translation to screen feels a little fragmented. A lot of this is due to the bland performance of the hero Jake, played by Asa Butterfield. Known for his roles in Hugo and Ender's Game, Butterfield has a Depp like quality to him that I think Burton likes, but he is out of his element here. Butterfield gives a wooden and tone deaf performance. Not helping him is Finlay MacMillan who plays a peculiar who can raise the dead or bring inanimate objects to life. He instantly dislikes Jake and we are forced to watch them have this unearned sloppy rivalry of sorts. I hesitate calling it that because it barely resembles one.
The real standouts are Eva Green, who will soon be a Burton regular and Ella Purnell, the blonde haired and faired skin peculiar who can control air, but will float away if she's not weighed down. They manage to channel their inner oddness and bring their characters to life. When they were on the screen, I was engaged, when it was Butterfield, I was bored. Samuel L. Jackson is the villain, he hams it up a bit, but it works here and he doesn't become too Samuel L. Jackson-y.
Miss Peregrine isn't Burton's worst film, nor will it be mentioned among his best. It's a film in his filmography that will probably be forgotten among so many similar flicks. Burton has done this before, he's done it better. At least he's bringing it back a little though. Gone is the CGI vomit on the screen and in its place are actual characters in actual places. So at least he's got that going for him.
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It would mean this movie is about something.
