Miss peregrine's home for peculiar children

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children Critique: Anyone who knows Tim Burton, knows that his films all have one thing in common (aside from having Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in them) which is they all have a unique gothic style; a style that no other director has really pulled off other than him. That style is characterized by "creepy" or scary looking characters or monsters. So it may come as a surprise that this film, while it does have a gothic style, it probably has the least amount of his signature grotesque characters in the film compared to others he has made, that I have personally seen. That may come as a good thing if you aren't fond of his style, or maybe it'll alienate you from the film entirely.

The story itself wasn't anything special. There is a boy, Jake, who loves his grandfather because his grandfather is the only person in his family that seems to really care about him. Early on in the story, the grandfather is killed by a monster that only Jake is able to see. Jake is then brought to therapy by his parents think something must be wrong because Jake is “seeing things�. Skipping ahead a little, Jake and his father go to an island in Poland as they believe it can help ground Jake in reality and help him stop seeing these strange things. However, remarkably, Jake finds a time warp that sends him back to 1943 where he meets these people who posses strange and unique powers. They have these abilities that "normal" humans don't and they need to live in isolation from the rest of society because most people fear and hate them. They are in the care of Miss Peregrine who keeps them safe and uses each person's special abilities to help with tasks. This scenario is like in the X-men comics where Professor X has a school for "gifted" students and has certain people assigned to specific areas based on their powers. As far as story, I'll end it there.

The acting in the film for the most part was really good. Asa Butterfield, who plays Jake, and Eva Green, who plays Miss Peregrine, really stood out from the rest of the cast, which should be the case as they are the stars in the film. The supporting cast however is hit or miss, more so on the miss side sadly. Samuel L. Jackson and Judi Dench are in the film (really big name actors) and their performances are, in my opinion, mediocre at best, especially Judi Dench's. They are barely in the film at all. It's a shame, because their characters were very interesting and I would have loved to see more of them.

There are some notable supporting characters that aren't big names such as Ella Purnell, who played Emma, and Finlay MacMillan, who played Enoc. They were hands down the best from the supporting cast, but the vast majority of the supporting cast was still lacking. I can understand that a lot of the actors/actresses aren't that experienced in acting, many of the actors/actresses are young and do not have many credits under their names, but that doesn't mean there cannot be a spectacular performance.

Cinematography and lighting for the film was nothing noteworthy. It was fluid

throughout, but it by no means broke new grounds, unlike the Revenant did for its lighting, or Birdman did for its cinematography. Everything was well lit and everything looked crisp. I didn't notice any framing issues, and if there were, they were so minor that it isn't worth to mentioning. Notably, the daytime and nighttime scenes looked very natural and thought out.

The biggest thing I wanted to talk about was the CGI. In some parts, the CGI was phenomenal and looked breathtaking. There are a few scenes where Jake is underwater, and he is in an air bubble while a room filled with water. The water is rapidly sucked out and bubbles fly past the actor’s face in a realistic and startling display. But there was a few scenes where one of the characters is making some items grow, such as a carrot and a tree, and it looks horrible - you can very clearly tell that the scene was not fully developed. The outer edges had a green trim, and the overall object seemed extremely glossy/not even textured at all. It was a huge eye sore since the enlarging of these objects was supposed to be the main focus of the scene. This is a scene where unless you see it for yourself, it's hard to talk about. I personally find it confusing when a movie has some spectacular visuals, also has some awful ones mixed in. I suppose they producers might have hoped the good effects distracted you from the bad ones.

Sound is always hard to place. There is rarely that much to say about it. Every soundtrack in the film fit really well, the credit music seemed off to me, but I don't take credit sequences into account in an overall critique. For example, the water CGI scene sounded hyper-realistic and it was easy to imagine it had been filmed real life. As well, when the characters are on a rusted boat, they had the creaking floorboards, dust falling, water dripping in the background. Much like the cinematography and lighting, there isn't anything to really say aside from the fact that it was well done in all aspects.

In my opinion, this isn't a film I could tell someone to see in an expensive theater. If it was in a cheap one, or if it was available to watch on a on-demand service then I would recommend they check it out. It wasn't a bad experience, the story was fine, but it wasn't anything that will blow you away at the end of the day. It felt like a lot of the ideas were taken out of other forms of media. The fact that there was a group of people with special powers, reminded me too much of X-men. Because of that I started to think of X-men and wanted to watch X-men instead. I don't think anyone would be really disappointed in seeing this film, I did enjoy watching it, but I really recommend waiting until a cheaper option is available until you do see it.