Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Directed by Tim Burton
A teenager finds himself transported to an island where he must help protect a group of orphans with special powers from creatures intent on destroying them.
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What critics say influenced Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Director
Bryan Singer
Critics compare Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children to 2 of Singer’s films.
The whole thing sounded too much like a copyright-skirting nod to Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, of “X-Men” fame.
Other viewers will see echoes of X-Men , Groundhog Day , Ladyhawke , Toy Story and even the 1980s Biggles movie, as the story progresses.
The movie's a testament to outsiders, as most of Burton's films are, though the source material (the novel) feels to me like inorganic matter, made up of too many easily identifiable fantasy reference points, from Harry Potter to the mutants of "X-Men."
Guided by Ransom Riggs’ YA novel on which the film is based, Burton riffs on X-Men and (to a lesser extent) Harry Potter, and while the combination may look winning on paper, the results are tragically clichéd and will likely leave fans of both Burton and the novel frustrated and confused.
It just can’t stop coming up with limitlessly peculiar stuff, much of which has a familiar odor: It’s “X-Men” meets “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Groundhog Day,” plus there’s a kind of Addams Family versus the Holocaust vibe — “They’re creepy, they’re spikey, they’re totally Third Reich-y.”
This is pretty much Burton doing an X-Men movie, with a plucky yesteryear vibe and evil Samuel L. Jackson thrown in for extra fun.
Still, Goldman knows a thing or two about blending character with concept, as she’s credited on both X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: First Class.
Screenwriter Jane Goldman, who co-wrote the x-cellent pair of X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, doubtless agrees, fashioning her societal miscasts, all huddled under the protective eye of Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), as decent kids longing to belong to a world that rejects them.
In fact, screenwriter Jane Goldman worked on X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, as well as Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Fans of the books may miss specific characters, the melancholy tone and certain undercurrents–like the persecution of the peculiars and its parallels with Nazism–but, in general, Burton’s take, based on a screenplay by Jane Goldman (X-Men: Days of Future Past), is more family friendly and, yep, corporate.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the novel was adapted by Jane Goldman, who co-wrote “X-Men: First Class” and received a story credit for its time-hopping sequel, “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” pulls off some similarly intricate temporal loop-the-loops, as Jake and his friends seek to ward off an evil presence stalking them through time and space.
Overseas, Abe's past becomes clearer, part of a time-continuum ploy Riggs devised, like Groundhog Day rebooted to World War II.
It just can’t stop coming up with limitlessly peculiar stuff, much of which has a familiar odor: It’s “X-Men” meets “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Groundhog Day,” plus there’s a kind of Addams Family versus the Holocaust vibe — “They’re creepy, they’re spikey, they’re totally Third Reich-y.”
It's the same day, over and over again, "Groundhog Day" style.
Miss Peregrine has been able so far to preserve in an endless cycle, “Groundhog Day”-style, the day prior to the fatal bombing by creating “loops” in time.
The result is basically “Groundhog Day” meets The X-Men, with a touch of “American Horror Story” thrown in for good measure.
The peculiar children of the film's title are certainly unique but you can find plenty of other films in the DNA of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," particularly skeleton soldiers from "Jason and the Argonauts," the X-Men franchise for making freaks lovable, "Groundhog Day" and even the underappreciated Hayden Christensen film "Jumper," which also has time shifting at its core and the same sort of evil force in Samuel L. Jackson.
Working from a screenplay by Jane Goldman (“The Woman in Black”), Burton delivers his most ambitious and engaging film since “Sweeney Todd” (2007).
Showing restraint is unusual for him, and letting the inherent weirdness of the story do the work, he has turned out his best film since “Sweeney Todd” (2007).
A quick jaunt through the catalog of the famous filmmaker more than suggests synchronicity with that worldview, although there have been exceptions – though both his “Alice in Wonderland” and “Sweeney Todd” earned accolades from the general public, neither could be regarded in the same way as many of his earliest successes (“Batman,” “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands,” for instance).
Though its cabinet-of-wonders aesthetic and meticulously appointed visuals announce it as a Burton movie through and through, this is easily the director’s finest work since his masterful 2007 screen adaptation of “Sweeney Todd,” and a striking reminder of what an unfettered gothic imagination can achieve with the right focus and an infusion of discipline.
Not since “Sweeney Todd,” and before that all the way back to “Sleepy Hollow,” have the studios found such a perfect match of material for Hollywood’s most iconic auteur.
Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were all visually daring, but emotionally vacant.
The peculiar children of the film's title are certainly unique but you can find plenty of other films in the DNA of "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children," particularly skeleton soldiers from "Jason and the Argonauts," the X-Men franchise for making freaks lovable, "Groundhog Day" and even the underappreciated Hayden Christensen film "Jumper," which also has time shifting at its core and the same sort of evil force in Samuel L. Jackson.
Like some of the director's earlier works, this one features some moments of stop-motion animation (or at least computer animation made to appear that way) that are either lifted from other movies (a creepily modified toy battle scene reminiscent of views from "Toy Story") or are moments of homage, including a fun update on the legendary "Jason and the Argonauts" skeleton fight scene (that ends up far closer to Harryhausen's long-ago work than this year's earlier release of "Kubo and the Two Strings" that featured just one giant skeleton).
It’s all the more fun when the monsters finally turn up, with a joyous nod to the Ray Harryhausen skeleton battle from “Jason and the Argonauts” and a dining-room scene with bad guys gathered around the table to feast on a platter of children’s eyeballs.
While the finale pales in comparison to a lot of big-budget Hollywood action productions, it does have the advantage of using stop-motion animated skeletons, which pays homage to the stop-motion animation work of Ray Harryhausen in “Jason and the Argonauts.”
My favorite involves the children in a climactic battle with the monsters while receiving the aid of some reanimated skeletons — reminiscent of “Jason and the Argonauts.”
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Like some of the director's earlier works, this one features some moments of stop-motion animation (or at least computer animation made to appear that way) that are either lifted from other movies (a creepily modified toy battle scene reminiscent of views from "Toy Story") or are moments of homage, including a fun update on the legendary "Jason and the Argonauts" skeleton fight scene (that ends up far closer to Harryhausen's long-ago work than this year's earlier release of "Kubo and the Two Strings" that featured just one giant skeleton).
Other viewers will see echoes of X-Men , Groundhog Day , Ladyhawke , Toy Story and even the 1980s Biggles movie, as the story progresses.
Director
Tod Browning
Critics compare Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children to 2 of Browning’s films.
At first glance, the pairing of Ransom Riggs’s macabre 2011 coming-of-age novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and director Tim Burton would seem like a match made in movieland heaven: an Edward Gorey–inspired island of lost souls as filmed through the lens of old-school horror filmmakers, such as Tod Browning (1931’s Dracula and 1932’s Freaks).
Burton’s version of Riggs’ book, about children with alarming mutations and superpowers, is about what you’d expect: a tween-friendly version of Tod Browning’s shock-horror classic, “Freaks.”
At first glance, the pairing of Ransom Riggs’s macabre 2011 coming-of-age novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and director Tim Burton would seem like a match made in movieland heaven: an Edward Gorey–inspired island of lost souls as filmed through the lens of old-school horror filmmakers, such as Tod Browning (1931’s Dracula and 1932’s Freaks).
Director
Tim Burton
Critics compare Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children to 12 of Burton’s own films.
It’s nowhere near as good as Burton’s foray into similar-minded material, such as 1990’s masterful Edward Scissorhands, but then nothing Burton has made in recent years has been much to write home about.
It's what you expect from the director of Alice in Wonderland, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands - and if you're familiar with the novel you'll understand how well the director and this story are suited.
It doesn't have the striking personality of "Beetlejuice" or the surprising wonder of "Edward Scissorhands," but “Miss Peregrine” still offers Burton's trademark exploration of the world from the perspective of the people who never feel like they fit in.
There’s one character who can bring inanimate objects to life as puppets — dolls, corpses, he doesn’t much care — and a fight he stages between two Frankentoys could be right out of Edward Scissorhands.
Though the actress is brunette, Burton dressed her as a blonde (and emphasized her eyes), in the tradition of bottle blondes in his films, from Kim in “Edward Scissorhands” to Katrina Van Tassel in “Sleepy Hollow” and Alice in “Alice in Wonderland.”
Art-house geeks are forever on the lookout for the fabulous fabulist to craft another one of his dark, slightly perverse fairy tales like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
This is predictable content, but there’s worse places to be than Big Fish territory.
In adapting Ransom Riggs’s 2011 YA novel, screenwriter Jane Goldman (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”) provides Burton with the same mix of real and fantasy he conjured for the similarly themed “Big Fish.”
Goldman’s frequently amusing script is the secret ingredient that makes “Miss Peregrine” such an appropriate fit for Burton’s peculiar sensibility, allowing the director to revisit and expand motifs and themes from his earlier work: With its time-skipping chronology and family-reconciling framing device, the entire tale could be another of Burton’s “Big Fish” stories (from the film of the same name); it offers opportunities for “Frankenweenie”-style stop-motion; there are ostracized freaks (and even a dino-shaped topiary) straight out of “Edward Scissorhands”; and its elaborate, meticulously decorated mansion manages to improve upon the wonky houses seen in “Beetlejuice” and “Dark Shadows.”
There are also flourishes reminiscent of his modern-day fairy tale Big Fish and the dramatic palette contrast of Edward Scissorhands, making you feel that all that's going to happen has happened once before in a previous feature.
(It's essentially the plot of Burton's Big Fish all over again.)
Burton of course is the mad genius behind “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Beetlejuice” and “Big Fish,” among many other singular works — but alas, “Miss Peregrine” ranks down there with “Dark Shadows” as a rare Burton bust.
It doesn't have the striking personality of "Beetlejuice" or the surprising wonder of "Edward Scissorhands," but “Miss Peregrine” still offers Burton's trademark exploration of the world from the perspective of the people who never feel like they fit in.
Creepy toys and outcast misfits, sure — but where’s he fun of Beetlejuice or the heart of Edward Scissorhands?
Art-house geeks are forever on the lookout for the fabulous fabulist to craft another one of his dark, slightly perverse fairy tales like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
A quick jaunt through the catalog of the famous filmmaker more than suggests synchronicity with that worldview, although there have been exceptions – though both his “Alice in Wonderland” and “Sweeney Todd” earned accolades from the general public, neither could be regarded in the same way as many of his earliest successes (“Batman,” “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands,” for instance).
Hopes for something on the level of Edward Scissorhands or Beetlejuice have had diehards visualizing the dark, whimsical craft that Burton might bring to the material—the story of a 16-year-old boy’s visit to the island home of an orphanage populated by kids with magical powers.
Burton is expected to return to one of his most-loved movies next up, directing a sequel to Beetlejuice with Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder returning.
Ever since 1989's Batman, Tim Burton has been called a director more interested in visuals and ambience than plot.
Director Tim Burton has been working with big-name franchises since 1989’s “Batman.”
Multiplex owners clamor for the big moneymakers - Batman ($411 million in global ticket sales), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ($475 million), and the mother of all Burton fairy-tale-blockbusters, Alice in Wonderland ($1.04 billion).
A quick jaunt through the catalog of the famous filmmaker more than suggests synchronicity with that worldview, although there have been exceptions – though both his “Alice in Wonderland” and “Sweeney Todd” earned accolades from the general public, neither could be regarded in the same way as many of his earliest successes (“Batman,” “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands,” for instance).
Pero a diferencia de otras adaptaciones que Burton indudablemente hizo suyas en su traducción fílmica –en términos de estilo, diseño y narrativa (Batman, La leyenda del jinete sin cabeza, Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate, por ejemplo)–, aquí no se percibe que adopte y adapte del todo esta obra a su visión.
Burton, with his abiding affection for Gothic fairytales and enigmatic outsiders, would probably struggle to break into big-budget filmmaking now, but his commercial successes – Batman, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland – give him a measure of freedom.
It just can’t stop coming up with limitlessly peculiar stuff, much of which has a familiar odor: It’s “X-Men” meets “Alice in Wonderland” meets “Groundhog Day,” plus there’s a kind of Addams Family versus the Holocaust vibe — “They’re creepy, they’re spikey, they’re totally Third Reich-y.”
Tim Burton, who struggled to tie together The Addams Family-like Dark Shadows and make much of a muchness with Alice in Wonderland, finds surer footing on the grounds of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
It's what you expect from the director of Alice in Wonderland, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands - and if you're familiar with the novel you'll understand how well the director and this story are suited.
But it feels like he has been particularly immersed in well-known material over the last 10-15 years, lending his macabre hand to films such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Alice in Wonderland," and even his adaptation of the late 1960s TV show "Dark Shadows."
After his recent forays into animation, the CGI fest that was Alice in Wonderland and the courtroom drama of Big Eyes, there is a joy in seeing a Tim Burton movie set in a world which looks visually authentic but still possesses the director’s unique, vibrant style.
Though the actress is brunette, Burton dressed her as a blonde (and emphasized her eyes), in the tradition of bottle blondes in his films, from Kim in “Edward Scissorhands” to Katrina Van Tassel in “Sleepy Hollow” and Alice in “Alice in Wonderland.”
Though the actress is brunette, Burton dressed her as a blonde (and emphasized her eyes), in the tradition of bottle blondes in his films, from Kim in “Edward Scissorhands” to Katrina Van Tassel in “Sleepy Hollow” and Alice in “Alice in Wonderland.”
Art-house geeks are forever on the lookout for the fabulous fabulist to craft another one of his dark, slightly perverse fairy tales like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Burton, with his abiding affection for Gothic fairytales and enigmatic outsiders, would probably struggle to break into big-budget filmmaking now, but his commercial successes – Batman, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland – give him a measure of freedom.
Many of Burton’s films have won Academy Awards for their rich, imaginative art direction (Batman, Sleepy Hollow, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), and his films can also be a showcase for actors, too.
Not since “Sweeney Todd,” and before that all the way back to “Sleepy Hollow,” have the studios found such a perfect match of material for Hollywood’s most iconic auteur.
Even his more straightforward films like 2014’s Big Eyes or 1999’s Sleepy Hollow can’t easily be categorized and dismissed as run-of-the-mill.
Two masked twins are particularly creepy, especially with a payoff reminiscent of the “Large Marge” scene in Burton’s first major film, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” — the source of Generation X nightmares that continue into middle age.
If you had asked most audiences and critics in 1985 if Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure director Burton would be one of the most recognized and prominent directors in film history, most of them would have laughed.
Miss Peregrine clamps down on the liabilities enough to let the assets shine, and thirty years after Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, they’re still assets well worth paying attention to.
It’s all stuff Burton has deftly explored before, from “Edward Scissorhands” to the animated black-and-white gem “Frankenweenie” to “Alice in Wonderland.”
OK, so Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children comes nowhere near the inspirationally bizarre level of Frankenweenie or The Nightmare Before Christmas.
After disappointing results directing Dark Shadows, Frankenweenie and Big Eyes and producing Alice Through The Looking Glass, Tim Burton needs a successful movie.
Goldman’s frequently amusing script is the secret ingredient that makes “Miss Peregrine” such an appropriate fit for Burton’s peculiar sensibility, allowing the director to revisit and expand motifs and themes from his earlier work: With its time-skipping chronology and family-reconciling framing device, the entire tale could be another of Burton’s “Big Fish” stories (from the film of the same name); it offers opportunities for “Frankenweenie”-style stop-motion; there are ostracized freaks (and even a dino-shaped topiary) straight out of “Edward Scissorhands”; and its elaborate, meticulously decorated mansion manages to improve upon the wonky houses seen in “Beetlejuice” and “Dark Shadows.”
As a visionary, someone who took familiar concepts and became daring and inventive with them, his list of failures and modestly entertaining, but inadequate, films is now longer than his list of successes, with Big Fish and Frankenweenie his only significant accomplishments in the last twenty years.
Before Frankenweenie, which also climaxes with children taking on monstrous creatures — products of experimentation gone wrong — in public at some sort of fairgrounds.
How else, for instance, is one to surmise the flavorless quality of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” when the same man was once capable of making the astounding “Ed Wood,” in itself the funniest and most resonant of his early pictures?
Martin Landau won the best supporting actor Oscar for his heartrending portrayal of Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood.
Tim Burton (2012's " Dark Shadows ") can do dark and whimsy in his sleep, and his best films?from 1985's "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" to 1988's "Beetlejuice" to 1990's "Edward Scissorhands" to 1994's "Ed Wood" to 2003's " Big Fish " to 2007's " Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street "?blend this macabre touch with poignant helpings of vulnerability and heart.
Riggs’ story is about a loner trying to find his place in the world – a story that the filmmaker behind “Edward Scissorhands,” “Big Fish” and “Ed Wood” is certainly no stranger to.
Ed Wood, his best film, benefits from the marriage of Burton’s style with strong writing, and that is always the sweet spot that I look for when it comes to his films.
Like his recent film version of "Dark Shadows," Burton's "Miss Peregrine" may end up in a sort of No Teen's Land of audience perplexity.
Tim Burton, who struggled to tie together The Addams Family-like Dark Shadows and make much of a muchness with Alice in Wonderland, finds surer footing on the grounds of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
But it feels like he has been particularly immersed in well-known material over the last 10-15 years, lending his macabre hand to films such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Alice in Wonderland," and even his adaptation of the late 1960s TV show "Dark Shadows."
Miss Peregrine is played by Eva Green (of another Burton misfire, 2012's "Dark Shadows") with a giant sculpted curl flinging off her head, a meerschaum in her mouth and a twinkle in her heavily shadowed eye.
After disappointing results directing Dark Shadows, Frankenweenie and Big Eyes and producing Alice Through The Looking Glass, Tim Burton needs a successful movie.
Beginning with his short film "Vincent" (1982), Tim Burton has frequently used a particular visual style.
Although sporadically entertaining and far from his worst picture (take your pick between “Planet Of The Apes” and “Alice In Wonderland”), “Miss Peregrine” does little to dispel the notion that the filmmaker remains buried in his comfort zone, with still no signs of impending exhumation.
It’s gotten to the point where the mere addition of Burton’s name to a movie title can justify an otherwise iffy prospect: You don’t want to see a “Planet of the Apes” remake?
Inspired to investigate for himself, Jake travels from sunny Florida to foggy Wales, pokes around the rundown mansion where gramps claims to have once lived, and then stumbles backward in time into an eternally repeating day, like the title characters of Jacques Rivette’s Céline And Julie Go Boating.
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It's what you expect from the director of Alice in Wonderland, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands - and if you're familiar with the novel you'll understand how well the director and this story are suited.
His tall, lanky frame and enormous eyes recall Jack Skellington from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
OK, so Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children comes nowhere near the inspirationally bizarre level of Frankenweenie or The Nightmare Before Christmas.
(Of all the film’s design improvements, the hollowgast represents its most inspired, looking like a malicious, tentacle-mouthed twist on “The Nightmare Before Christmas” pumpkin king Jack Skellington.)
Burton does his best to make this film look like a Tim Burton joint, to the point that it features a bizarre and ugly pseudo stop-motion crab fight that looks like a cross between The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands.
And perhaps it owes its biggest debt to Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits , with its friendless hero, evil nemesis and time-hopping antics.