While it might not be the triumphant return to form claimed by some Tim Burton fans, this is certainly a return to more familiar territory for a director whose distinctive voice has been somewhat diluted of late. Full of baroque curlicues and a macabre steampunk supernatural vibe, Miss Peregrine’s is Burton almost to the point of self-parody. There is so much dry ice swirling around, it looks as though it was shot inside a giant gothic bong, which would certainly explain some of the plotting.
Jake (Asa Butterfield) is our guide into the world of the “peculiar children” – kids with gifts as diverse as the ability to cause fires, control air, exhale bees and animate dead things in a manner reminiscent of the scurrying cadavers that inhabit the films of Jan Svankmajer. Piecing together clues from his dead grandfather (Terence Stamp), Jake finds himself on a small island off the coast of Wales. There he meets Miss Peregrine (Eva Green, vampy and camp in the way that only she can get away with), the headmistress and protector of an orphanage which is perched permanently, and perilously, in the past.
Adapted by the prolific Jane Goldman from a novel by Ransom Riggs, the film blends the milieu of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters with a Groundhog Day-style time loop, and adds some monsters that look like they were constructed from the offcuts of a Guillermo del Toro film. This is filtered through the prism of Burton’s cobwebby weirdness, all creaky floorboards and off-kilter angles, flamboyantly odd costumes and giddy swoops of emotion in the score. While the individual story components might not be entirely original, Burton certainly claims them as his own. Whether he makes them cohere is another matter.
