When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that spans different worlds and times, he finds Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. But the mystery and danger deepen as he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers.
There are a number of directors who are instantly recognisable from a few frames of film. It can be camerawork, choice of actors, colour, framing or even just from the subject matter. Tim Burton is one such director whose work stands out from all of the above and is so heavily marked and understood as his that it can be both a compliment and a detriment to a film. In other words, when you watch a Tim Burton film, you expect it to hit certain beats and have certain themes and tones because, well, he's always done it and why would he change now? So it goes with Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, an adaptation of a bestselling YA novel that feels almost like it was written specifically for Burton.
Asa Butterfield is your quintessential Burton protagonist; a young child who looks a little odd and has a huge imagination, but doesn't fit in with anyone. Living in Florida with his parents, Kim Dickens and Chris O'Dowd, he has more in common with his grandfather, the great Terence Stamp, who regales him with stories of "peculiar" children and a secret house in Wales where he and they lived during the '40s. Attempting to deal with a Sudden, Tragic Event™, Butterfield and O'Dowd set off for Wales to try and locate the secret house and bring some sense of normality to his life. Before long, he's whisked away into a Burtonesque world that sees Eva Green able to command time and turn into a bird, a young girl (Ella Purnell) who literally floats away unless she wears goth bootsand various other super-powered children who are all being hunted by Samuel L. Jackson and a group of other "peculiars" intent on destroying them for Evil Purposes™.
Essentially, the story plays out like a variation on any and all teenage superhero storyline or comic you care to mention where gifted-but-weird children live in secret and must deal with their powers and growing up in a world that hates or rejects them. What's interesting here is that it effectively cuts out one aspect of it - interacting with the world - and replaces it hiding from the world. Secrecy is key to these children and the film spends a huge amount of time world-building and explaining why and how they hide from the outside world. It makes sense, for the most part and once you go along with it instead of trying to pull it apart, there's a lot of fun to be had.
Asa Butterfield does, admittedly, give a largely flat and uninteresting performance as the audience's link into the world, but thankfully the film doesn't rest solely on his shoulders. Eva Green gives a spirited performance as the titular character and portrays a huge amount of charm and warmth, something that's sometimes missing or not properly displayed in Burton's work. Ella Purnell's bright, wide eyes soak up the screen and Chris O'Dowd gives an interesting performance as the distant, emotionally unavailable father to Butterfield. The problem comes with Samuel L. Jackson, who has some moments to shine but almost lets the makeup and special effects do the work for him instead of trying to push himself into it. It's a shame because, with the right villain, the film could have really had something.
That said, the creatures whom the main characters are hiding from are particularly scary and really do work with Burton's visual style of making things creepy and beautiful at the same time. The production design surrounding the film is gorgeous and Burton's flair for fiendish and cartoonish horror is second to none, particularly one scene involving the monstrous creatures dining on a plate of children's eyeballs. Even the camerawork shifts over the course of the film; beginning as a straight family drama before it shifts and changes into a gilded, period fantasy before, sadly, moving into a comic-book movie finale with special effects to round it all out. While some of the visuals are interesting and Jane Goldman's screenplay does a decent job of working through exposition quite well, there is a sense that it's a little ho-hum in parts and that Burton is working against his instincts to go all out. That works as Burton is at his best when he's restricted. You just need to look at Batman or Ed Wood and you'll see that when he's funneled and forced into a standard enough story, he can produce some fascinating work. Young adult novels are, by their nature, restrictive so it goes that Burton works well enough here.
For the most part, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children works as a tablesetter for a franchise and Burton's visual flairs and keen eye for design are well used. Despite a lifeless performance by Asa Butterfield and Samuel L. Jackson, there's enough hear to keep audiences entertained and hungry for more.