Peculiar children get their turn at saving the world, in Tim Burton’s newest science fiction offering “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children”. When tragedy strikes close to home, 16-year-old Jacob “Jake” Portman (Asa Butterfield) is forced to travel to a mysterious island in order to discover the truth of what really happened. Jake’s ordinary life takes an extraordinary turn as the childhood fairytales he’s heard from his grandfather start to become more plausible. After stumbling into what seems to be a different world, Jake is introduced to the extraordinary Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) and her peculiar children at Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. But when what seems to be a fairytale takes a horrific turn, when Jake is forced to make a life altering decision in order to protect the ones he loves from the monsters of his grandfather’s past, the creepy Hollows and the dangerous Wights led by the terrifying Mr. Barron (Samuel L Jackson). “Miss Peregrine’s” is rated PG-13 for for intense sequences of fantasy action/violence and peril.

Tim Burton is perhaps the perfect visionary to lend his artistic talents to the “Miss Peregrine’s saga” of novels that have been the talk of the literary town, and for visual spectacle this one certainly hits on all of the right cylinders. Burton has always done considerably well with time pieces, and a lot of that stems from a satisfying blend of detailed set design and faded visual cinematography that accurately depicts a feel from decades ago. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment from the movie comes from visual effects that offer the best in 2016 computer animation and CGI touch-ups that crafts the worlds that we indulge in from him that much more believable. Capped off by a dreamy musical score from composer Michael Higham, and we have a pulse-setting background in tone that blends well with the imagination of such a dreamers concept. The world of these characters and this style of magic was very attractive to someone like me who has never read one page of the books, and after the two hour feature I am kind of glad that I decided to keep it that way. Without knowing much of what was kept faithful, I can say that this movie’s substance doesn’t quite reach the magnifying integrity in style that Burton tends to go overboard on. The problems begin as early as the first act of the movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m someone who is grateful to a new concept in story that establishes all of the ground work and rules for the logic-defying heights that this story will take us on. “Miss Peregrine’s” takes great time and focus on presenting us with characters, who all of which get their time in the sun for deposition. For an ensemble piece, I was quite impressed with how generous the creative direction of Burton was with the many talented co-stars, and this informative direction gets its audience prepared for the atmospheric shifts in tone that the movie takes us on. Where this could serve as a weakness is taking too long to get to the point. The entire first hour serves as the opening act of the movie, so with an hour left there’s really not a lot of time to establish the antagonists, as well as the effects from so many subplots that water down a smooth transition during the first sixty minutes. The problem with the second half of the movie is similar to a magic trick; once you know the secrets and how everything plays out, you don’t seem as interested. This is a meaningful metaphor for the remainder of the movie because there’s a serious shift in tone that completely took me out of the movie.

It’s almost played out as a comedy, complete with laughably bad antagonist (Played by Jackson) who lacks any kind of directional purpose for a story like this. I honestly would’ve been fine watching the Nazi subplot of this movie played out with the creative time loop that the movie informed us on. This idea of a boogeyman antagonist really off-set the nostalgic tragedy that I enjoyed between these kids being stuck in the same day over and over again, never knowing true acceptance or happiness among the society that goes on around them. Considering the villains names in this movie are The Hollows, it’s pretty easy to make a joke on the lack of creative depth or personality from their jarringly dull movements. It all gets crazy quite quickly, and by the end of the movie it feels like you have seen three stories compressed into a single offering that never quite gets its footing back. There’s noticeably dismantling plot holes that spread wider the more that I think about them, and even for a movie that thrives on suspension of disbelief, it can stretch its ridiculous bone ten feet too far.

I did enjoy the characters and their hidden talents. To me, the movie was an equally satisfying mixture of Harry Potter meets X-Men, and the characters of this one will always have a warm spot in my heart. A lot of that thrives on the surprising age of the cast involved, many of which are children who are acting for the first time. With the exception of two casting choices I will get to later, I found all of their work exceptionally well, juggling childlike innocence with extraordinary feats that made entrapped me in their likeability every time another one came around. One performance in particular from that of twenty year old actress Ella Purnell as the wide-eyed, gravity defying Emma. What I find so charming about her character is how much encapsulates the power of controlling air from someone with such a small frame. There’s plenty to like about Purnell, but her focus and reactionary depth in commuting accurately on more than one emotion, gave her a relatable personality to that of her respective decade in the movie. Eva Green though, is definitely the glue that holds the movie together, firing off line after line of deep-breathed dialogue that makes her simply irresistable to the audience at home. Miss Peregrine’s demeanor is one of mother-like concern with a faint dark side somewhere off in the distance for anyone that threatens the lives of the kids she has come to house. Green is perfect casting not only for Burton’s kooky demeanor of creative direction, but with the chemistry she exuberates with the children she plays off of.

Samuel L Jackson and Asa Butterfield are two casting decisions that really took me out of the movie. Jackson’s main problem is that his character dialogue expressed Improv to me, and it was hard to take him seriously from his noticeable personal characteristics that everyone has come to know him for. You don’t see Barren the evil hollow, you see Samuel L Jackson hamming it up to distracting levels. This angle never instilled any kind of fright or conflict for the characters for me, and I would’ve liked to have seen a more menacing side to play against characters who are extremely gifted. Butterfield was perhaps my least favorite thing about the movie. His emotional response is virtually non-existent, and without that I found it difficult to invest in his character or the true dilemma regarding his plot to find out about his grandpa’s past. Butterfield plays everything at one continuous level, and I can see where this would be appealing to the sometimes monotonous Burton, but that doesn’t always make for the most entertaining of characters, and Asa’s reserved delivery took me out of the story on more than one occasion.

Overall, “Miss Peregrine’s” is a visual feast that brings to life the storybook fairytales that only a man of Burton’s stature can accurately depict. With a story that didn’t feel as convoluted or as crawling as the one in the second half, this movie could’ve provided the breath needed for the currently struggling Y-A genre of films. As it stands, this one lives up to being peculiar, but in the negative condensation. muddled in missteps every inch of the way.

5/10