'Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children' A Review

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children is a fantasy movie based on the young adult novel of the same name. Jake(Asa Butterfield) is a young teen friendless in Florida until he discovers that the fantastic stories his grandfather(Terence Stamp) have been telling him may be true. He sets off with his dad(Chris O'Dowd) to Wales to track down the children's home where his grandfather grew up. He discovers the stories are true and the home, positioned in a time loop repeating the same day in 1940, is populated by some peculiar children indeed.

Eva Green as the titular Miss Peregrine is electric, her considerable charisma and magnetism on full blast. Unfortunately she has hardly any screen time and the brief glimpses we get of her only put the already struggling lead Butterfield in harsher relief. Butterfield is awkward and gangly with all his teen insecurity on display, he is almost totally unbelievable because we can see him trying so hard. The peculiar children themselves are almost universally delightful, each with distinct looks and personalities, it makes you wish the plot wasn't so rushed so that they could actually have a chance to exist outside the "action" of the plot. O'Dowd's plays an incredibly confusing neglectful, immature, alcoholic(?) dad who not only doesn't fit in the story he doesn't seem real. The dynamic Kim Dickens as Jack's mom is stunningly underutilized appearing in, I believe, less then ten seconds of the film. Overall the cast are all good(some great) actors but either due to the lurching momentum of the script or muddled direction only half of them are actually successful in their roles. This is to say nothing of Sam Jackson's almost kabuki villain.

Visually the movie is imaginative and striking with vivid colors, imagery, and the characteristically Burtonesque touches of macabre. The story hurtles along so quickly we never get a chance to really care about whats happening or any of the characters its happening to. So much is cramed into the convoluted plot they forgot to stop and have some fun.

An uninspired adaptation with imaginative visuals and a brief but excellent performance by Eva Green.

Rent It.