Not Tim Burton’s best work
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
(out of 4) Starring Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Samuel L. Jackson. Directed by Tim Burton. 127 minutes. Opens Friday at GTA theatres. PG Time travel, fantastic monsters and a household of oddball children overseen by a pipe-smoking den mother. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children fits very nicely into Tim Burton’s unconventional oeuvre.
But the film, based on the 2011 novel, is not the best work by the filmmaker known for his wildly imaginative visual style and attraction to idiosyncratic tales, although it has its moments.
Young Jake’s placid life in Florida is turned upside down when his beloved grandfather is killed under strange and mysterious circumstances. Cryptic dying words and a series of old photos sets Jake on a journey to a remote Welsh island to unravel the mystery of his granddad’s past.
He discovers the ruin of a home, bombed to smithereens by the Germans on Sept. 3, 1943, but soon learns the inhabitants still exist in a time “loop,” living the same day over and over, relatively content and unaging.
The list of “peculiar” abilities manifested by the children could easily have been plucked from Burton’s own offbeat imagination. One girl is a fire-starter, another lighter than air; one boy has bees living inside his mouth and a pair of twins — whose faces are covered with creepy dolllike masks — have a useful skill that is revealed at an auspicious moment.
The whole crew finds themselves in mortal peril from Barron, an evil ad- versary, and his coterie of lanky, longlimbed monsters.
Burton displays his usual penchant for visual marvel, making the best use of 3D: Not to have things jump off the screen but to enhance and accentuate his sumptuously detailed settings.
Asa Butterfield is fine as the wideeyed but resourceful protagonist and Eva Green essays the role of Miss Peregrine with alacrity. But Samuel L. Jackson’s turn as the jagged-tooth villain is tiresomely over the top.
The story’s pace could be described as languid bordering on turgid and the film’s running time, at more than two hours, feels excessive. It is redeemed by a suspenseful and entertaining climactic showdown in which the abilities of the children are put to good use.
For filmgoers who love Burton’s “peculiar” brand of filmmaking, patience will be required.