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A TEAM of unlikely heroes – each with their own unique special powers and headed by a leader destined for greatness – try to fend off a powerful villainous force.
Sounds like most other comic book movies these days.
But that’s where the comparisons stop with Tim Burton’s latest effort, which provides an altogether more peculiar experience and finds the director firmly back on solid ground.
Based on the acclaimed young adult novel by Ransom Riggs, we centre on a young American teenager named Jake (Asa Butterfield) who has grown up hearing fantastical stories from his loving but now sickly grandpa Abe (Terence Stamp).
When his grandpa horrifically passes away, no-one believes it was the monster Jake saw kill him and he is made to do therapy.As part of his treatment, he goes on a trip with his aloof father (Chris O’Dowd) to a small island off the coast of Wales that was at the forefront of his late grandpa’s mythical stories.
He soon meets a group of strange kids who take him back to a “loop” of time in 1943 and to the house where they live, led by the enigmatic Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) who learns that they’re all in imminent danger from dark forces that have been hunting them for years.
The title alone screams Tim Burton and it gets even louder once we delve back in time.Inside the titular home, we are introduced to the eclectic, fantastically gifted (from invisibility to making plants instantly grow) children and adults alike who populate it.
Gothic rooms, quirky behaviour, outlandish costumes – the ingredients are all there. But they are things which have often ill-served the director through recent times (here’s looking at you, Dark Shadows).
But this feels like Burton back on a form that’s at once reigned in and unmistakably him.It’s soaked in the director’s trademark imagery but it’s also never too in-your-face, presenting a world that’s undoubtedly stylised in the way only he can but also keeps character and emotion at the forefront of the swiftly paced narrative.
Despite him being a very talented and distinctive young actor, Butterfield feels weirdly miscast in the lead role. There’s a curious lack of engagement with the character throughout.But it’s filled with hugely enjoyable supporting performances, including Green’s Miss Peregrine – alluring and eccentric in equal parts.
And Samuel L Jackson sinks his teeth into the over-the-top, white-eyed baddie with gusto.Most of all it’s just a load of fun, exhibiting a kind of old-fashioned jaunty sense of adventure and wonder that bursts into full life in the film’s memorable finale that impressively combines old-school practical and modern CGI.
In the same vein as 2003’s Big Fish, it celebrates familial bonds and imaginative storytelling.
And it’s Burton’s best film since that time.
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