Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Cert: 12A. Now showing.
Tim Burton surely cheered when he came across Ransom Riggs’s three-million-selling young-adult novel about macabre children and the warping of reality and magic. Watching this lavish fantasy adventure unfurl before you, it comes to remind you why Burton is such a singular presence in filmmaking, with Riggs even remarking that the director brought some improvements to the tale in his adaptation.
A suitably eye-catching cast is assembled to depict the tale of Jake (Asa Butterfield) following his late grandfather’s (Terence Stamp) dying instructions to travel to a remote Welsh island to find the titular home. He voyages there with his man-childish dad (Chris O’Dowd) and eventually uncovers the home, long since ruined by German bombing. He is discovered by Emma (Helena Bonham Carter lookalike Ella Purnell), one of the peculiar children, and brought back to happier times to meet the dazzling Miss Peregrine (Eva Green, a vision around which the whole thing seems to revolve).
By this stage, the project is really starting to hum with Burton’s special aesthetic. Emma wears an Alice in Wonderland dress and lead boots to stop her floating away. There is an invisible boy, and a little girl with superhuman strength. Weirdos and outcasts are the heroes, the beautiful freaks bringing colour to the world. Musty mansions, fairground rides and circus rings host an eventual showdown with the dastardly Mr Barron (Samuel L Jackson, camping it up) and his monstrous “Hollows”. Only a cameo by Edward Scissorhands could make it more Burton.
Butterfield is dimmed by such bright lights in the cast around him. Some CGI-heavy scenes in the finale are wearisome but the madcap register of calmer moments makes for enchanting fun.