Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

There’s nothing quite so cozy as movie night.

(2016) Fantasy (20^th Century Fox) Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Samuel L. Jackson, Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, Allison Janney, Chris O’Dowd, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, Finlay MacMillan, Lauren McCrostie, Hayden Keeler-Stone, Georgia Pemberton, Milo Parker, Raffiella Chapman, Pixie Davies, Joseph Odwell, Thomas Odwell, Cameron King, Louis Davidson, Kim Dickens, O-Lan Jones. Directed by Tim Burton

 

I think that as children we can be divided into two categories; those who want to fit in, and those who don’t care. Many who want to fit in often feel like they don’t. We feel alien, peculiar and not at all like someone who is popular or admired. We feel like we’re on the outside looking in. What we fail to realize as children is that sometimes being on the outside looking in is far cooler than being in a cage.

Jake Portman (Butterfield) is one of those kids who doesn’t feel like he fits in. The only place he feels halfway normal is at his grandpa Abe’s (Stamp) Florida home, where the old man regales him with tales of fighting monsters during Worlds War II, and staying at an orphanage run by a Miss Peregrine, who presided over children with strange powers known as Peculiars.

After getting a call for help from Abe, Jake and his co-worker Shelley (Jones) arrive at Abe’s place to find signs of a struggle. They later find him dying in the yard, both his eyes plucked from his head. This understandably messes Jake up and he starts seeing a shrink, Dr. Golan (Janney). She urges him to follow Abe’s story, particularly after he discovers a letter from Miss Peregrine to Abe which takes him and his father Franklin (O’Dowd) – who is more interested in researching his book on bird-watching which he’s been working on for years without progress than in bonding with his son – to an island off the coast of Wales.

There he finds the ruins of the orphanage, bombed into rubble by the Luftwaffe in 1943. He also finds some of the Peculiars who take him into a cave which brings him back to 1943 – on the very day the house would be destroyed. There he meets Emma Bloom (Purnell), a lighter-than-air girl who has control over air (she can create windstorms and bubbles of air underwater) and would float away if not tethered or wearing her lead boots whose heart was broken by a young Abe back in the day, the necromancer Enoch O’Connor (MacMillan) who can bring life to lifeless things, Olive (McCrostie) who is a pyrotechnic and Miss Peregrine (Green) herself. As it turns out, Miss Peregrine is kind of a guardian spirit called a Ymbryne who are able to morph into birds (in Miss Peregrine’s case, a falcon).

He learns the story of the Peculiars and those who are chasing them – the terrible Wights, who are led by the white-haired Mr. Barron (Jackson) who have been experimenting on Ymbrynes to make themselves immortal. Some of the Wights who are quite human-looking have turned into Hollows, hideous tentacled monsters who eat the eyeballs of Peculiars to revert back to human form.

It turns out that Mr. Barron is much closer by than they think and Jake has become an integral part of the fight. It turns out that Jake is able to see Hollows and sense their presence – a gift that Abe also had. With Jake and Emma falling in love again despite Emma’s best efforts, time is running out and Jake must find a way to protect the children from the evil Wights and from the ravages of time itself.

Burton is one of the most uniquely visionary directors in history. This is the kind of material that is right in his wheelhouse, or at least you would think so. This film is based on the first of a trilogy of young adult books by Ransom Riggs, which are in turn based on vintage photographs Riggs had collected that were somewhat spooky or hinted at uncanny powers (if you buy the young adult books, you’ll see the actual photos but some of them can be seen on the Internet if you’re willing to spend time Googling them). Riggs showed these pictures to Burton before filming and it’s plain to see that Burton used them as inspirations for his character design of the children.

That said, this doesn’t feel like a typical Tim Burton film in many ways. I thought it far more mainstream than what we’re used to from the director and far more vanilla in tone. Now while I admire Burton’s work a great deal, even as an admirer I’m willing to admit that his work has been less consistent in the past decade or so, with great work (Big Fish) interspersed with not-so-great work (Dark Shadows). This falls somewhere in the middle, with leanings more towards the latter.

Butterfield is a decent enough actor, but not one who fills a screen up with charisma. Much of the movie depends on Jake becoming a leader, but I’m not sure I’d follow him very far. He just seems kind of…bland. Green, who has maybe the most incandescent smile in Hollywood, doesn’t seem to be having much fun here; she comes off as a kind of second-rate Mary Poppins only less cheerful. I almost expected her to say “Spit spot!” Thankfully, she doesn’t.

Burton reportedly tried to go with practical effects as much as was possible, but you really can’t use them for an army of skeletons battling giant tentacled creatures which takes place during the climax. The effects are reasonably good and the setting reasonably moody but nothing here really impresses other than that Burton seems to do a good job of capturing the tone of the antique photos which colors the whole film.

One of the big missteps oddly enough is Jackson. One of my favorite actors in Hollywood, he doesn’t seem all that motivated here. When I see Samuel L. Jackson in the cast, I want to see Samuel L. Jackson whether that expectation is fair or not. Instead, we get a kind of mannered performance, like what would happen if Tim Curry was impersonating him. He just never convinces me that he’s all that malevolent or dangerous.

This could easily have been a major event film and franchise establishment but instead we get a movie that kind of just gets by. It doesn’t really feel like a Tim Burton movie. Fox currently has a reputation of being a studio that meddles in the product more than most of the others, so one wonders if there is studio interference at play here. Regardless of whether that’s the case or not this is a movie I can only moderately recommend. Chances are it will be a momentary distraction that will escape your memory faster than Emma Bloom escapes gravity.

REASONS TO GO: The film has an odd kind of antiquarian feel. The climax is thrilling.
REASONS TO STAY: The whimsy normally associated with Burton is missing. Jackson is wasted in a bland villainous role.
FAMILY VALUES: There are children in peril and some violence of a fantastic nature.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Miss Peregrine’s home actually exists; it is called Torenhof and is located outside of Antwerp in Belgium.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/22/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 64% positive reviews. Metacritic: 57/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Storks

MegaMind

If nothing else, MegaMind sure knows how to make an entrance.

(2010) Animated Superhero Feature (DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Brad Pitt, David Cross, J.K. Simmons, Ben Stiller, Stephen Kearin, Justin Theroux, Jessica Schulte, Tom McGrath. Directed by Tom McGrath

It is a bit of an existential quandary that without evil, good cannot exist. In order to be good, there has to be a comparison point; if we don’t know what evil is, how do we know we’re good?

Evil itself can be environmental. MegaMind (Ferrell) comes to Earth as a baby escaping the destruction of his home planet. His escape pod lands in a prison for the criminally gifted where he is raised to believe that the right thing to do is steal and avoid being caught. His nemesis, Metro Man (Pitt) is also from a doomed planet in the same quadrant as MegaMind’s former home; however, whereas MegaMind lands among the scum of the earth, baby Metro Man lands in the lap of luxury.

Curiously, both of them wind up at the same school (which MegaMind pronounces as “shool”; it is a running gag throughout the movie that Mega has difficulty pronouncing certain words correctly) where Metro Man is well on the road to being a hero, admired by all his classmates who are amazed at the superpowers of flight, super strength and heat vision that Metro Man possesses. Mega unfortunately has none of these, only a genuine desire to be liked which is virtually impossible given the shadow he must labor in. He resolves that if he can’t do the right thing properly, he is at least good at doing the wrong thing and maybe that’s his destiny.

He becomes a super villain, an inventor of extraordinary weapons and machines. His modus operandi is very similar; he kidnaps Metro Man’s girlfriend newscaster Roxanne Richi (Fey), Metro Man comes to rescue her, MegaMind springs a trap but his plans ultimately fail and Metro Man sends him back to prison.

However, this one time, Mega and his faithful Minion (Cross), a kind of goldfish in a gorilla robot suit (don’t ask), actually do defeat the good guy – they disintegrate him with their death ray, as a matter of fact. Much to Mega’s surprise, they rule Metro City – which Mega, true to form, pronounces as Metrosity, which rhymes with atrocity.

He has it all now; power, wealth, the ability to do whatever he wants whenever he wants but it is curiously empty. He has discovered that without good to oppose him, evil is meaningless. With Metro Man gone, he needs another nemesis, so he sets out to create one. Using the DNA of Metro Man (taken from the dandruff on his cape), he uses Roxanne’s cameraman Hal (Hill) as the subject (quite accidentally) and, in the guise of space father (a very funny homage to Marlon Brando as Jor-El in Superman: The Movie) trains the former cameraman (who had a huge but unrequited crush on Roxanne) as a hero (look for a very amusing Donkey Kong reference here). However, Titan (or, Tighten as Hal spells it) has other plans, plans that will require Mega to find his inner hero and save Metro City. Holy Role Reversal, Batman!

The movie is very amusing and has some unexpected touches in various locations, some obvious and some not – for example, Roxanne is very plainly based on Lois Lane, whereas the Metro Man museum where much of the action takes place has the Image Comics logo just as plainly a part of the building’s overall design, which should make many a geeky fanboy happy as a clam. Just as an aside, where the heck did that old saw come from? Are clams really happy? Is their life’s ambition to make it into a really nice chowder? Inquiring minds want to know.

Be that as it may, everyone (fanboy or not) will get a kick out of Ferrell’s performance. It is truly unique and quirky and Ferrell at his best. Perhaps I’m a little bit out of line, but I think it’s some of his best work since Anchorman. Yeah, I know it’s a cartoon.

The movie’s plot is a bit simplistic, but the underlying message is quite surprisingly sophisticated, taking a fresh view of the nature of evil and its need for a counterbalance. That one may go over the heads of younger kids who are more interested in the toys and Mega’s pet robots (think mechanical Minions from Despicable Me only without the charm), which are the latest in a long line of obvious merchandising ploys from recent animated features. They are more annoying than cute, however.

While this year’s animated feature derby hasn’t turned up anything on the level of Up or Ponyo, there have still been some solid quality movies out there like the aforementioned Despicable Me, Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon. MegaMind is at least as good as any of those, which is good news for parents weary of recent kidflicks that haven’t measured up.

REASONS TO GO: Plays plenty of homage to the comic book superheroes. Plenty of humor for big kids as well as small fries. Ferrell is fabulous as the malapropism-prone MegaMind.

REASONS TO STAY: The plot is a bit on the simplistic side and the robot pets are annoying after awhile.

FAMILY VALUES: There are a few mildly naughty words but probably not words you haven’t said in front of the kids before, accidentally or otherwise. Yeah, let the whole fam damily go out and see this one.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In order to promote the movie, Will Ferrell gathered 1580 of his friends and their acquaintances in superhero costumes to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for most superheroes gathered in one place.

HOME OR THEATER: Oh c’mon; you know the kids won’t give you a moment’s peace until you take them to see this in the theater three or four times.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: I Remember