The review

clanking automaton of insufficient heart or electric thrills.

Burton’s usual occupations are all present – a young lonely outsider with estranged parents, a kindly grandfather figure, a scissor-handed puppet given life and a circus ring in the finale.

Asa Butterfield plays Jake, a 16-year old modern-day American who visits Wales and discovers the time loop, where it’s still 1943.

Hidden inside is Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, where the never-ageing pupils live the same day over and over again. Each childch has their own peculiarity, suchs as invisibility, great s strength or pyrokinesis. Eva Green gives a w wonderfully eccentric turn as th the glamorous pipe-smoking hous housemistress Miss Peregrine, a combination of Mary Poppins and Morticia Addams. As well as creating the time loop to keep the youngsters safe from their fearful enemies, she can transform into a peregrine falcon and is a deadly shot with a crossbow. Her home is one of many such timeprotected hideaways, all threatened by The Hollows – monsters led by the evil Mr Barron, played by Samuel L Jackson. With shark-like teeth and a white wig, Jackson matches Green’s performance. The film is energised by his belated appearance.

There’s plenty of handsomely designed spectacle, adorned with a dash of romance and odd humour.

But the big mystery is who this film is aimed at. Based on the best-selling novel by Ransom Riggs, its eye-eating villains are far too macabre for little ones and the sub-superhero adventure is too gentle for teens.

And, true to its lengthy title, the storytelling is caged and never soars.