Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Movie Review
Up until about halfway through this steaming pile of rotting dogshit I was willing to give it a pass as "well, not very much like the book, but Burton has his own vision" but then the movie went completely off the rails and left nothing but a festering sense of despair and sadness in anyone unlucky enough to be in the movie theater.
"It's films like this that make me hate waking up and spending eight bucks," my companion, who had not read the books said as we left. We stayed until the end. Several other people at the movie did not make it that far and started walking out in the middle of the putrid third act.
I don't know what happened here.
The book had a female hero. The movie makes the boy the hero.
The book has an internal logic. The movie has none.
The book is an adult love story. The movie is aimed at five year olds.
I guess the most ridiculous scene is the peculiars getting into a snowball fight with the monsters.
The most depressing thing is that in the books the peculiars are not children and don't act like children. They simply look like children.
In the movie the y are very childlike actual children.
All agency is removed from all of the female characters.
Even the scenes set in 2016 are whitewashed.
There is a scene in the book where "This Is Why" comes up and it's by far the fan favorite, but that never makes it to the screen because it would have had to include the love story they for some reason delete.
This is a film that wants you to believe a 16 year old with really good eyesight is somehow more powerful than a 66 year old woman who can throw fireballs from her hands.
It's also a film that asks you to suspend all sense of logic and flow and prays you will simply jump over Grand Canyon sized plot holes.
The film makes the entire concept of going to the movies a grim experience.
The book is sad because the peculiars have hope even though they are trapped in a version of Eden that grinds on and on and on.
The movie is sad simply because it exists.
"It's films like this that make me hate waking up and spending eight bucks," my companion, who had not read the books said as we left. We stayed until the end. Several other people at the movie did not make it that far and started walking out in the middle of the putrid third act.
I don't know what happened here.
The book had a female hero. The movie makes the boy the hero.
The book has an internal logic. The movie has none.
The book is an adult love story. The movie is aimed at five year olds.
I guess the most ridiculous scene is the peculiars getting into a snowball fight with the monsters.
The most depressing thing is that in the books the peculiars are not children and don't act like children. They simply look like children.
In the movie the y are very childlike actual children.
All agency is removed from all of the female characters.
Even the scenes set in 2016 are whitewashed.
There is a scene in the book where "This Is Why" comes up and it's by far the fan favorite, but that never makes it to the screen because it would have had to include the love story they for some reason delete.
This is a film that wants you to believe a 16 year old with really good eyesight is somehow more powerful than a 66 year old woman who can throw fireballs from her hands.
It's also a film that asks you to suspend all sense of logic and flow and prays you will simply jump over Grand Canyon sized plot holes.
The film makes the entire concept of going to the movies a grim experience.
The book is sad because the peculiars have hope even though they are trapped in a version of Eden that grinds on and on and on.
The movie is sad simply because it exists.