Rating: C-
Dir: Tim Burton
Star: Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Ella Purnell, Samuel L. Jackson
Whatever happened to Tim Burton? There was a point in the early nineties where it felt he could do no wrong. But the transition to this millennium proved tough. Planet of the Apes was his first true misfire, and though Big Fish was a return to form, everything after has been disappointing. I think I gave up on him after Alice in Wonderland, until Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and that was underwhelming. On the other hand, the usual suspects came for Burton because of his refusal to go rainbow diversity in his casting. The Soul Train segment in BB seemed like a subsequent middle finger to his DEI critics: “You want minority characters? Here, have the most stereotypical ones imaginable”.
This was a Chris request, but one I was happy to fulfill because Eva Green, who has been great in everything I’ve seen of hers. She can’t do much here, for what feels like a twee knockoff of an X-men comic. Jake Portman (Butterfield) travels to an island off the Welsh coast, following the depth of his grandfather in weird circumstances. There, he discovers the titular establishment, which inhabits an endlessly repeating day in 1943. Its pupils under Miss Peregrine (Green), all have extraordinary talents. For example, Emma Bloom (Purnell), is lighter than air and can breathe under water. They are under threat from Barron (Jackson), who hunts Peculiars in order to eat their eyes, which he believes gives him power.
This is more or less the same schtick Burton was doing in Edward Scissorhands, more than twenty-five years previously. The “other” is not to be feared, it’s good to be “different”, and so on. I’m not sure if it’s me that has changed, or if the execution here is just less effective. Probably a bit of both. My philosophy now tends to the view that being different is not intrinsically a good thing. Nor is it bad. It’s what you do with yourself that matters. “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake”, as Chuck Palahniuk put it. Hiding in a bubble of time isn’t doing anything with your peculiarities, and the movie spends the best part of an hour faffing about along with them.
While I’m not familiar with the YA book on which this is based, there’s not much here to make me want to check out the source material. Once the war between Barron’s forces and the Peregrine pupils kicks off, the film gets some energy, with a nice battle on Blackpool Pier. However, Butterfield makes for a terribly bland hero, as if the studio ordered a pallet of Generic American Teenagers from Costco. The women all seem to be Helena Bonham-Carter at various ages, from pre-teen to menopausal, though it feels as if Burton pillaged his own tome, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, for characters like Hugh Apiston, who has bees living in his stomach. Yeah, I’m not climbing back on the Burton train: more black people certainly wouldn’t help this.