Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

I am giving this movie 4 stars only as a respect to the book as I love them and the ideas that are implemented to the story. I have read the books and I loved them that said I am not one to cry if a movie sails away from the book. But this was just awful. Tim Burton has sold out plot and story-telling to visuals and action, which I can't really blame him for as he decided to put content of 3 books into one movie. There was no character development, there was no time to get to know the main character, the relationships between characters have grown almost out of nowhere with no chemistry whatsoever. Hollowgasts that are terrifyingly strong and dangerous in the books are defeated by plastic skeletons in a 7 minute "epic" battle with the most boring ass carnival music in the background. I honestly cringed through the 7 minutes. Plot making zero sense, characters behave irrationally and out of character, I really find it hard to believe that the children from the book would have the courage to fight their most feared enemy after in a 2 day interval just because Jake, their hero that they've only known or 2 days gives them some sort of super courage that they can fly around and walk around invisible around fearless. Not to mention the villains, not terrifying at all, honestly Samuel Jackson's character was more cringe that Swartzenegger's villain from Batman. The plot rushed with many plotholes and loopholes to give the audience at least a bit of an understanding.And the acting. HOLY CRAP! The only good acting was the acting of Eva Green, I thought she was brilliant actually, otherwise it was just cringy and not believable at all. The main character's acting was probably worst of all followed by Emma's.I am so dissapointed, this had such a potential if only they made it into at least 2 movies and tried to develop the characters more. Tim Burton is no longer trying to make art, he is only trying to make money, relying on his fame and past contributions to film industry.

Well... 8 star for concept, 1 more for the Headmistress actor and... minus 6 for all the crap which've put in the movie. Honestly base on this concept they could have done a much more successful series like pirates of the caribbean.

After reading the book, I was super excited to watch the movie- I loved it, the characters, the bizarre yet wonderful nature of the peculiar talents -I couldn't wait to watch the movie. And yet, I felt incredibly disappointed in the first ten minutes watching the movie. The acting was absolute garbage in my opinion, there was no emotion behind any of the characters, especially in the scene when Jake's grandfather dies- sure he looks concerned, but he shows nothing else to this and is much calmer about his grandfather dying in front of him than let on. The one-liners the children and Mr Barron have during the fight scene are actually yawn-inducing. That and I got more pissed off than I should've that Emma and Olive's powers were swapped in the book to movie process- why? I actually loved that Emma was a hot-head (literally) in the book and that that's who Jake takes an interest with. Instead, they make Emma a lighter-than-air blonde peculiar, because she'd be more accepted as a love interest by the audience?

It's safe to say I'm not the biggest Tim Burton fan, I find that his imagination takes over and detracts from a story. I was worried he would do the same here. Guess what? He did. A young teenager finds his grandfather dead, his last riddling words spark Jake into unraveling the mystery to his sudden death. He eventually discovers an alternate time loop that consists of children with special powers known as 'Peculiars'. We're talking invisibility, levitation, pyro-kinetics, a boy spewing bees from his mouth and a young girl with another mouth on the back of her head. Suffice to say, this was Burton's interpretation of the X-Men. Some of these peculiarities are useful and thoroughly explored, others are just shown once. On top of this we have 'Hollows', demented creatures that desire to eat the eyes of 'Peculiars' so that they can return to human form. Hmmmm how best to describe these ghastly creatures you might ask? Easy. Slender Man! Imagination aside, Burton has crafted yet another creative world. There is no doubt he is a genius when it comes to creating fantasy realms. The problem is, he doesn't focus on developing a coherent and compelling story. Guarantee atleast 90% of the dialogue is exposition. Explaining the vast amount of rules involving time loops, alternate realities, peculiarities and the primary antagonist...it's too much! It's overstuffed. It's important to include scenes where the characters just interact naturally without having to progress the story so that we can relate to them and become emotionally invested. It started off well, and then quickly descended into explanation hell. Apart from that massive issue, this film works as a family fantasy adventure. The visual effects were pretty decent for the most part, except the 'Hollows' who were terribly animated. Performances were serviceable. Asa Butterfield struggles occasionally to act with expression, but he does hold the film. Eva Green looked the part and was the only captivating performance. Not Burton's finest, but it is watchable.