Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Blu-ray Movie Review

Harry Potter and the Groundhog Day.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 16, 2016

Is there still magic in the cinematic universe after the end of the Harry Potter franchise? Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children would seem to be a fitting substitute, at least on a surface level, since it involves a gaggle of “gifted” youths whose special powers have made them protectorates of the titular Miss Alma Peregrine (Eva Green), a gifted individual herself who is able to transform into her surname’s bird form. The film’s source book by Ransom Riggs was a fascinating variation on what is called an “epistolary novel,” with (in this case) vintage photographs taking the place of “found” objects like letters and memos. It gave the book a really distinctive identity that would seem to play perfectly into the visual aesthetic of director Tim Burton. It’s perhaps a little odd, then, that Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children turns out to be a fairly staid enterprise, at least by typical Burton standards, one that can’t quite meld its Potter-esque (and it might be added X- Men-ish) tendencies with what might be called a certain Groundhog Day aspect to the plot mechanics. The film is certainly entertaining, but it by and large fails to connect emotionally despite some overt attempts to tug pretty mercilessly at various heartstrings.

Before Miss Peregrine and her brood are introduced, though, the film focuses on teenager Jake Portman (Asa Butterfield), who is forced to check up on his addled grandfather Abe (Terence Stamp), since the elderly man is under the impression some nefarious types are out to get him. Jake shows up at his granddad’s house to find it in disarray, and his grandfather near death in the woods behind the home. Abe grabs Jake’s arm before expiring and emits a seemingly baffling array of information about “loops” and “1943”. Jake is understandably distraught, especially when he sees some kind of spectral monster approaching, an entity his co-worker Shelly (O-lan Jones) can’t see. (Earlier on the way to Abe’s house, both of them had seen an odd looking African American man with glowing white eyes standing in the middle of a fog laden road.)

Jake’s concerned parents Frank (Chris O’Dowd) and Maryann (Kim Dickens) get him into counseling with Dr. Golan (Allison Janney), but are a little freaked out themselves when Golan agrees with Jake that following up on his grandfather’s long running bedtime stories about a home for “peculiar” children in Wales might help the young man reach some closure after the death of his grandfather. Despite some misgivings, Frank, an avid birdwatcher, agrees to take Jake to the isolated island of Cairnholm, a rustic location with just a handful of residents and one solitary hotel.

Jake breaks away from Frank and finds Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children, but not in the state he hoped to. It’s an abandoned wreck, having been bombed by the Luftwaffe and seemingly full of ghosts—including one that seems to think Jake is Abe, at least for a moment. In just one of several unexplained phenomena that the film’s screenplay never adequately explains, it turns out that the kids Jake spots aren’t ghosts but are in fact the very same children Abe grew up with decades ago, sent by Miss Peregrine to fetch Jake back to that aforementioned “loop”, which turns out to be the aformentioned Groundhog Day aspect. In a somewhat baffling plot conceit (especially considering the fact that kids just plop out into 2016 to get Jake), the kids and Miss Peregrine have stayed alive for years by reliving the same day over and over, and it is in fact the day that the home ended up getting bombed (at night). Jane Goldman’s adaptive screenplay struggles mightily to elide some of the illogic that’s already on display, but this is one of many whimsically themed Burton films where preposterous plot mechanics simply need to be accepted in order for the film to make whatever sense it’s able to muster.

Part of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children plays very much in the Potter or X-Men mold, with the kids revealing their powers while under threat from a supernatural force, in this case baddies called Hollows, one of whom is a shapeshifter named Barron (Samuel L. Jackson). But the film also wants to address Jake’s coming of age, including his predictable realization that he’s a “peculiar”, too. A late development involving another mentor (called Ymbrynes) like Miss Peregrine, Miss Avocet (Judi Dench), just seems shoehorned into the proceedings for no discernable reason other than to give the always enjoyable Dench a little screentime. The “threat” posed by Barron has a couple of interesting twists, but when he actually shows up to confront Jake, it’s weirdly anti-climactic and nowhere near as scary as it should be, ironically in part because Miss Peregrine is so forceful in the scene.

Adding to the diffused feeling of the film is an overstuffed cast that never devotes sufficient time to either the good guys or the bad guys to ever clearly delineate any of them. There are tons of vignettes sprinkled throughout the film, many involving the kids under Miss Peregrine’s care, and there’s some passing lip service (in more ways than one) to a burgeoning romance between Jake and Emma Bloom (Ella Purnell), but events just kind of happen and then the film moves on. There's whimsy galore throughout the film, as in the best Burton offerings, but there’s little organic weaving together of elements that when taken on their own can be quite charming. The result is a film that does have a bit of magic, but one where the tricks seem hackneyed and the misdirection (again, in more ways than one) isn’t especially artful.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb actually came through this time and lists the Arri Alexa XT as the camera of choice, with a 2.8 source capture resolution finished at a 4K DI. The results are generally splendid looking, though this is one of the more curiously restrained outings from Tim Burton and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel in either man's filmography (Delbonnel perhaps not so coincidentally lensed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and he previously collaborated with Burton on both Dark Shadows and Big Eyes). There are a number of "looks" throughout the film, from the initial bright sunniness of Florida which suddenly turns both figuratively and literally dark and deep blue, to the kind of slate gray or (dare I mention this color?) teal look of Cairnholm, to the again buttery, summery ambience of the 1943 time loop that Miss Peregrine and the children reside in. Occasionally the film tips over into typical Burton grotesqueries, with brief flashbacks documenting the rise of the Hollows having an almost monochromatic appearance. Through all of these tonal changes, detail levels remain uniformly high, with the exception of some dimly lit interior scenes and, perhaps more understandably, a long underwater sequence where detail levels aren't quite as pronounced as the bulk of the presentation. There was just the barest hint of banding in this sequence on my display when light hit the water a couple of times, but it was extremely minor and transitory. CGI is a bit softer than the rest of the presentation. When not intentionally tweaked, the palette is nicely suffused and (in the sunny, ungraded moments at least) rather natural and refreshed looking.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track that exploits regular surround opportunities in a number of both effects laden sequences as well as simpler techniques like smart placement of ambient environmental sounds. The first appearance of a Hollow at what seems to be the death of Jake's grandfather has good low end as well as bursts of sonic energy when a gun is repeatedly fired. Later, water sounds enter the fray once Jake and his dad make it to the Welsh island. Even the seemingly calm environment of the 1943 time loop has nice elements like breezes ruffling through the side channels when Miss Peregrine takes Jake on a tour of the grounds. Perhaps oddly, then, this film's supposed "climax" is just a little lackluster in terms of showy sound effects. Otherwise, though, everything from dialogue to score sounds clear and damage and distortion free.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Peculiar Story (1080p; 12:51) is an above average featurette with good interviews with Ransom Riggs, who discusses the genesis of his Miss Peregrine opuses.


• The Peculiars (1080p; 1:04:54) provides profiles of the peculiars with generous assortments of snippets from the film, along with interviews and other background information.


• Hollows and Ex-Hollows (1080p; 9:24) is a more cursory look at the bad guys (and gals).


• Map of Days (1080p; 17:40) centers on the time loop aspect of the film.


• "Wish That You Were Here" Florence + The Machine Music Video (1080p; 2:18)


• Gallery

  Photographs (1080p; 1:13) is a fun side by side comparison of the vintage photos from Riggs' book and those created for the film

  Sketches by Tim Burton (1080p; 1:08)

• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 4:50)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I haven't been shy about complaining when filmmakers split one book into two films, as has happened repeatedly in the wake of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, but I actually wonder if Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children might have benefitted from such an approach. There's a lot to like in this film, but much of it is severely underdeveloped to the point that my hunch is some viewers will end up giving the whole a decided "meh", when perhaps a little more time detailing backstories of both the kids and the villains might have paid greater dividends. The film has neither the pointed darkness nor the bizarre whimsy that has defined some previous Burton efforts, but it at least has some amazing topiaries that could have been sculpted by Edward Scissorhands (yes, that's a joke). With caveats duly noted and with an understanding that technical merits are very strong, for those desperate for even a little magic in their lives, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children comes Recommended.