Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

This review may contain spoilers!

This is quite possibly one of the worst Tim Burton films I've ever seen. I would give Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children a 4/10.

The film's real strength is the world Burton delivers, the concept of the Peculiars and the Hollows is fascinating and there's a lot of content to draw upon. The special effects used within the film look really great; some of my favourites are the  air raid, the living skeletons and the designs for the Hollows.

Eva Green, who played Miss Alma LeFay Peregrine, did a great job portraying the film's title role; her intense almost methodical demeanour gave way to a truly touching bond between her and her young charges. Allison Janney, who played Dr. Golan, gave a very serious performance as a therapist within the film; she was truly one of the only interesting and realistic performances at the start of the feature. Ella Purnell, who played Emma Bloom, seems really engaged in the fantasy of it all; one of the most immersive and enchanting performances within the film. Finlay MacMillan, who played Enoch O'Conner, gives a very serious and grim character within the film; MacMillan really develops the role to become less cruel and more caring towards Jake and his fellow Peculiars. Lauren McCrostie, who played Olive Abroholos Elephanta, was a very kind yet timid character; McCrostie develops a nurturing caregiver type role who works hard to look after the other Peculiar children. Hayden Keeler-Stone, who played Horace Somnussen, presents a very intelligent and proper character; playing a child character who has to be very worldly and superior isn't always the easiest role to make likeable but Keeler-Stone certainly manages it. Georgia Pemberton, who played Fiona Fruanfeld, gives forward a very resilient role; she seems tough compared to some of the other Peculiars often rising to many of the challenges put before her. Pixie Davies, who played Bronwyn Bruntley, was one of my favourite Peculiars of the film; Bruntley really owned the physicality of the role which helped you believe she possessed the strength we see her use. Joseph Odwell and Thomas Odwell, who played the Masked Ballerinas, are the type of performances that are only good if the actors can take on physically displaying characters without any lines; the Odwells do a great job at making you fall in love with these Masked Twins. Cameron King, who played Millard Nullings, is a performer who I'm not sure if he acted through special effects or voice performance but either way he stands out; King's character is one of the funnier ones we're presented with.

However the best performance came from Samuel L. Jackson, who played Barron. Jackson doesn't step too far outside the box in this one but it's his simple performance that makes his role so enjoyable. The motivations and methods we see in Barron are no different from most other animated or blockbuster villains but Jackson clearly has such fun playing up these cliches. Jackson toes the line between emerging a rather creepy antagonist and a rather diabolical mastermind, I had a good time when Jackson was onscreen.

If you're going to do a film that relies so heavily upon time travel then you might as well do it right, watching the story and characters attempt to explain the numerous 'time loops' is hard to watch and plenty confusing. The film is also long with weak pacing, yet despite this lengthy run time the narrative does a poor job at establishing genuine relationships between most of these characters. By the end of the feature you'll probably be surprised to realise that you don't empathise with very many of the main cast. The narrative tries to force a romance subplot or two every so often and that's just hard to watch and out of place. The start of the film is unbearable to watch and takes far too long to get under way, you're constantly dealt with a frustratingly artificial depiction of an 'ordinary' turned extraordinary American life. The cinematography used in this film is really disappointing considering this is a Burton film; however most of the shots seem lazy and simple creating a rather lousy aesthetic for the film. The editing is so slow, the cuts happen too swiftly at times causing some of the nicer shots to be cut off too soon before you can really appreciate it.

Asa Butterfield, who played Jake, is one of the worst up and coming actors at the moment; Butterfield often visually looks like he's acting as opposed to embracing and portraying a character. Judi Dench, who played Miss Avocet, was absolutely wasted in this film; I have no idea why Dench was cast in one of the most forgettable minor roles of the year but here we are. Rupert Everett, who played Ornithologist, was a really over the top and hard to understand character; Everett was probably the wrong casting choice to play one of Jackson's personas. Chris O'Dowd and Kim Dickens, who played Franklin Portman and Jake's Mom respectively, were just really stale two-dimensional performances; Dickens was entirely forgettable while O'Dowd had no connection with Butterfield at all. Terence Stamp, who played Abraham Portman, was the worst actor in the film; this is one of the worst performances of Stamp's character and I couldn't stand when his character was onscreen. Milo Parker, who played Hugh Apiston, was one of the more forgettable Peculiars; Parker didn't seem to connect with the other child actors so much which certainly let down his performance. Raffiella Chapman, who played Claire Densmore, might have been one of the cutest Peculiars but she didn't have much of an opportunity to shine; Chapman's character never got that much screen time no she never really made her presence known. O-Lan Jones, who played Shelley, was this ridiculous and over the top minor role at the start of the film; the classic Americans getting crazy with their guns trope was kinda lazily used here. Nicholas Amer, who played Oggie, was a relatively normative performance who gave a lot of exposition to the film; yet the zany mannerisms of the character made him seem just a bit too absurd. Shaun Thomas and Justin Davies, who played Dylan and Worm, were these pretty stereotypical young miscreants in the film; their weird rapping moment was completely out of tone with the rest of the film.