Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

RATING: C+

Tim Burton has generally been known most of his career for the creatively weird and unusual stuff that he puts into his movies. He's probably the most unconventional Hollywood director around which, depending upon the movie, can be both his greatest trait and his greatest flaw. He's come up with plenty of stuff on his own, but sometimes he likes to take source material that was already creatively odd and make his own adaption of it. Such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Alice in Wonderland.

Here, he uses a somewhat lesser-known book that only came out five years ago and puts it onto the big screen. This movie centers around Jake (Asa Butterfield), who discovers a mansion out in Wales which houses various children with abnormal abilities led and taught by Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), as he helps them fight against forces that seek to destroy them. If it sounds a bit like the X-Men, that's because it sort of is... at least setting-wise, anyway.

They certainly were creative with the various "abilities;" if you saw the trailer, then you already know what ones there are, such as a girl with an extra mouth on the back of her head, a boy with bees in his stomach (yes, seriously) and a pair of odd twins who we never really find out if they're actually human or not.

Despite its efforts, not a whole lot about this movie is really particularly outstanding. I didn't find much about it to be poor either (besides the confusing "time loop" concept), but not a whole lot stuck out either. Samuel L. Jackson's over-the-top performance was arguably the best thing about it; the other main memorable sequence is a part where an army of friendly skeletons fight a bunch of evil monsters called "Hollows" at a circus pier. Ridiculous as it sounds, it has more life than most of the rest of the movie does, as well as being quite humorous.

Ultimately, the movie is just another example of Tim Burton's style and formula; which luckily hasn't gotten old because he's the only one doing it; but nonetheless, despite all of its creativity and efforts to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack, it somehow still feels stunningly average. Is it a failure? Not by any means, but it doesn't really garner a repeat viewing either. We'll still give credit to Burton for his effort, though.