"Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children" is premeiring this Friday, Sept. 30. However, is the movie adaptation of Ransom Riggs' first picture novel a hit or a miss?
The plot features a 16-year-old boy named Jacob on his adventure in a seemingly magical world after his grandfather's death, but the story is definitely not for children. It might cause some nightmares.
Jacob grew listening to his grandfather's otherwordly stories about children with special powers, the peculiars, and monsters that pursue them. As a young child Jacob was amazed and believed everything his grandfather told him, but as years passed by the stories sounded more unreasonable until came a day he cannot believe them anymore. Well, he also got bullied in school due to those tales.
However, everything changed one day when he found his grandfather dead in the woods and saw the monster for himself. Of course, no one believed him, even his parents and bestfriend who thought he was just shocked from the events. He really was shocked though because he started having nightmares every time he slept and even had to stop going to school.
On his birthday he received a gift from his dead grandfather. A book which contains clues about a letter from someone named Miss Peregrine. His psychologist advised him to solve the mystery once and for all and a series of events led him to Wales, an island where his grandfather stayed as a child. There, he discovered a run-down mansion and saw the peculiars for himself.
What Do Critics Say?
"Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" movie was critized for its screenplay. According to critics, the script lacked flow and is very robotic. However, the good visuals compensated for it. Tim Burton is known for providing viewers with imaginative visuals, especially in adaptations with ghosts, monsters and other beings. Here are what critics have to say on the film:
- Samantha Ladwig, IGN-- "Though there are lingering questions about certain characters by the time the end credits roll, the film's striking visuals help compensate for its unemotional and anti-climactic script."
- Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter--Burton pulls off the crucial time-stopping with tremendous flair and also develops a nicely low-key relationship between Jake and Emma. For a time, an appealing gentleness prevails that's rooted in this unique inter-generational romance, a feeling augmented in particular by Purnell's slow-blooming flower of a performance, and if the film had remained focused more on the improbabilities of this love story, it might have emerged as something rather special.
