Tim Burton’s ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’ is Peculiar little movie, but quite enjoyable
The long awaited adaptation of Ransom Riggs’ first book to the big screen is finally here. To be honest, I use to be a Burton fan for many years, until I could finally no longer stand the plummeting level and enjoyability of his movies. Aside from the film maker’s love of the darker side, Burton is also known for his love of the grotesque and the overly colorful. In recent years, he has also become quite notorious for taking too much liberty with works he adapts. For this reason, while it was generally agreed that Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the perfect choice for Burton, the question remains whether Burton is perfect for the movie.
For fans of Burton, the good news is that the new movie marks a remarkable comeback into business. It is, hands down, one of his best from the past decade or so. The director has found a very delicate balance between his usual dark psychedelic style and Riggs’ uncanny-magical-superheroish style. Lovers of the book series, however, may be very unhappy with the result. Part of this is because of Burton’s visual interpretation and part of it because of the screenplay, written by Jane Goldman, who was previously in charge of the screenplay for Neil Gaiman’s book, Stardust.
Ch… ch… Changes
Overall, the movie works, and stands on its own. It’s a fun movie, I’ll grant it that. However, the seeds of changes made in the plot at the first third of the movie, grow and become much more substantial in the middle, and completely derail the mysteries and subtleties of Riggs’ books. Pretty much any character which was a young child was made into an adult teenager in the movie, and vice versa – any character which was a teenager was made into a young child.
Those who have read the books on which the movie is based might wonder why, and the answer is, probably – in order to make possible some of the more outlandish, over the top, special effects and action scenes, which of course never happened in the books. Thus, for example, changing Emma’s peculiar powers serves the sole purpose of justifying the extravagant, but otherwise not very logical scene in the sunken ship, which is the highlight of all the trailers. Needless to say, none of that happens in the original story. But I will concede that the ship scenes are beautiful and a lot of fun to behold.
Miss Peregrine
Though Eva Green’s Miss Peregrine is nice, convincing and very Burtonesque, it is literally nothing like the character from the books. The movie’s Miss Peregrine is to the book Miss Peregrine what Burton’s Mad Hatter is to Lewis Carrol’s. There is nothing particularly wrong with that, except for the fact that action-hero Peregrine lacks the subtleties and ambiguities of Peregrine from the book. In that respect, Eva’s over confident, cocky, Sherlock Holmesy character is entertaining, but simply not as interesting.
Barron
The same may be said for Barron, the main villain in the movie, except that his character simply does not exist in the book. Again, while Samuel L. Jackson’s depiction of the character is creepy at first, he quickly diminishes from the formidable leader of the whites to a clumsy impotent, and comedic villain. If this is an attempt to lower the level of inadequacy of the movie for children? If that is the case, than the attempt is less than futile, because no amount of slapstick humor will make this movie fitting for children under the age of 13, at the very least.
There’s a new world (probably not) coming
Now, movies based on books don’t have to stick to the original plot; that is true. The problem is that in this specific case, a) these changes cause the plot to become a jumbled up mess towards the end, and b) the specific changes Burton has opted for, make it nearly impossible for the movie to have a sequel! There is, like, about 98% chances making a sequel would be impossible. The other 2% are there just because, you know, stuff happens and Hollywood executives have a way of making the impossible possible, if there is enough money to be made from it. Burton may have asked to come on board and direct this adaptation, but it is pretty clear he’s had his way with Riggs’ world and does not expect to revisit it.
Watch the Movie Trailer
