Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

How to Fix Tim Burton

| Rachel's Reviews

Earlier this year I did posts on how to fix Superman and Alice in Wonderland. Now I am taking on a great visionary like Tim Burton. In my opinion aside from his animated films he hasn’t made a good movie since Sweeney Todd in 2007. I’m sure he is rolling in his money somewhere but if anyone were to ask my advice here’s what I would say.

tim-burton1. STOP ADAPTING THINGS!– Tim Burton comes from an animation background and his animated films (both producer and director) have still remained great. What’s unique about them? They are original properties!  They come from Tim Burton’s brain!

Let’s look at his track record with adaptations:

Planet of the Apes- clunky, awkward, boring, and aside from Rick Baker makeup Tim Burton’s visual style nowhere to be found.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- they replace all the whimsy of the Gene Wilder classic with a Michael Jackson version of Wonka. I hated this film so much in the theater.

Alice in Wonderland- long, boring adaptation that trades in the Wonderland nonsense for a prophecy and chosen one with a apocalyptic battle scene and Crispin Glover being creepy, Helena Bonham Carter screaming

Dark Shadows- based off of cult TV show feels like each performer is in a different movie. The tone is all over the place. I didn’t laugh once.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children- just like so many YA adaptations it gets bogged down in exposition instead of creating compelling characters. I was so bored.

So there you have it. STOP DOING ADAPTATIONS!!!!

2. Animate Again– I don’t know how good Burton’s relationship with Disney is after Frankenweenie but I’m sure he can find a studio to work with again. In my opinion Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride are by far the best thing he has done since Ed Wood.

You could say that’s just because I am an animation addict and that would be true but Tim Burton started in animation and some of his most personal projects have been in that medium. His short Vincent feels practically autobiographical.

vincent06The other thing is animation takes time. A live action film can be filmed in as short as a month. Animation is multiple years process and I think Burton needs that to refine his scripts and make sure they are more than style over substance.

I’m not saying never do live action again but let’s get the Burton mojo back with animation. I’m sure Laika would work with him again and that would be awesome.

3. Collaborate- In my opinion Tim Burton’s best movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, isn’t actually directed by him. It is directed by Henry Selick. Sometimes I wonder if Tim Burton and Zack Snyder both need collaborators.

They are both visionary storytellers. There’s no doubt about it but left to their own devices the stories are muddled and boring.

ed-woodI don’t have any proof but I’ve got to imagine in the early days of Burton he was reigned in a lot more than he is now. At the very least I know Ed Wood was a very collaborative effort between writers Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, director Tim Burton and producer Denise Di Novi.

Working with his muses such as Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (who has evidently been replaced by Eva Green) you would think would invite collaboration but it does not appear to be the case. Perhaps you get too comfortable and that leads to uninspired work.

Animation is a very collaborative medium so it is no surprise his best work has been there.

4. NO CG-  Now I don’t really mean no CG, but I think CG has kind of ruined Tim Burton.  I can only imagine how much cooler his Alice in Wonderland would have been if he had to literally create the world.

If you think about Edward Scissorhands, Burton created an entire world. Just as an example, his version of suburbia in Edward Scissorhands is full of color and makes a statement about the life just in the color of the paint and the way the castle floats above the small houses.

edward_scissorhands_hillIn his recent Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children the suburb is just normal houses that look like any other houses.

peregrine-houseThe one part I liked in Miss Peregrine’s was the skeleton scene which is made to look like stop motion! It was like a little peak at what might have been.

skeleton5. REMEMBER THE EMOTION– Most of Tim Burton’s early films work (for me at least) not because of visual splendor but because I am emotionally attached to the characters. Big Eyes is the only one of his recent live action films I have connected with on that level (I so wish Christoph Waltz hadn’t ruined that movie with his overacting). Sweeney Todd has it because of the Sondheim music but other than that Tim Burton has had one flat protagonist after another.

Alice's expression through most of Wonderland...
Alice’s expression through most of Wonderland…

Ed Wood is a great movie because we care about Ed making his horrible movies. He is so happy doing what he is doing and that makes you root for him. Edward Scissorhands is heartbreaking. Jack Skellington is likable despite stealing christmas. Frankenweenie breaks your heart in two and I’m not even a pet owner.  The list goes on.

edward-scissorhands2Even a silly movie like Pee Wee’s Big Adventure you laugh but actually care a little bit about him finding that darn bike. I’m not the biggest fan of Burton’s Batman films but particularly Batman Returns has a lot of emotion in it. I mean Penguin’s story is a complete tragedy. I wish we could get a tenth of the emotion from Penguins funeral with the birds walking him into the water in films like Alice in Wonderland or Dark Shadows.

And you don’t have to make the character have Daddy issues to get emotion. Just have a character experiencing something that matters to them. Put on that Danny Elfman score and you’ve got my attention! Corpse Bride gets emotion out of me in Victor playing a piece of classical music. It’s a moment of human connection. That’s all it takes.

corpse-bride-victor-playing-pianoI really do think that Tim Burton is a talented man, a genius when he is on his game. I LOVE Corpse Bride. I LOVE Ed Wood. I LOVE Edward Scissorhands. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is genius. I thought Sweeney Todd was terrific. Frankenweenie made me bawl my eyes out. I want to like a new movie from him so badly!

So, that’s my opinion on that. You are welcome Mr Burton for the free advice 😉

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Review

| Rachel's Reviews

peregrine4Man oh man. What has happened to Tim Burton? It has been nearly a decade since he made a film that didn’t make me want to rip my eyes out and yet I still believe in his talent. I know Tim has the ability to be a great storyteller. I’ve seen it in Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands but instead all we seem to get are horrible misfires like Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Planet of the Apes, Big Eyes, the list goes on….When I saw the trailer for his latest project Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children I got excited. Could this be a redemption film for Tim Burton?

I was so interested in the film I read the book, which I found kind of boring but it had potential to be a better movie. This could be Tim Burton’s X-Men about a school in Wales for children with special abilities. The school is led by a woman named Miss Peregrine who is part bird. That sounds like a great premise for a Tim Burton movie but much like his recent films it is all promise and no execution.

Let me just come out and say it this movie bored me to tears. It felt like it would never end.

The biggest problem with the film is all the exposition. It reminded me of Last Airbender (never a promising start to a sentence) in the way it took magical lore and made it unmagical by explaining everything. Even the final fight is mostly people explaining their motivations and how they are going to get away with it. Kill me now.

peregrin2I haven’t been so bored in a movie since Warcraft. The trailer makes it seem like you are going to spend all this time with all these crazy fun kids. Not so much. Most of the kids you barely see and when you do see them it is more explaining with ever so brief glimpses at their skills (and absolutely no sense of attachment or heart to these mutant kids).

peregrineEva Green looks the part of Miss Peregrine but is left explaining to Jake how loops work and what the wights are (the school is in a loop repeating the same day and there are all these other loops all around the world…). There’s a scene where she shoots a crossbow at a wight and that should be awesome but it’s not because the script won’t allow it to be.

peregrine5I fell asleep for a few minutes at one point which is never a good sign. Asa Butterfield plays Jake who is grieving over his grandfather who dies in a rather horrific way (pretty scary movie for little kids). But he’s completely bland and the screenplay never allows us to connect with him emotionally.

This movie reminded me a bit of the 5th Wave. A premise that should be epic and exciting but instead is just dull and bland. It doesn’t even have Tim Burton’s signature colors or artistry. There is one fun fight with skeletons at the end but even that is interrupted by a scene with a lot of talking. The film is set in Wales so the cinematography feels foggy and muddled, so I didn’t even enjoy it on a visual level (at least a movie like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I hate, has a little bit of cool production design). I guess the only thing that looked kind of cool was when Jake and Ella are underwater and one of her bubbles becomes a helmet for him. That’s all I’ve got.

peregrine7There’s a twist with the villain that is supposed to surprise you but since we have spent no time with this person we don’t care. We also get Judi Dench for about 5 minutes to further explain things.

Everyone feels miscast and bored in the film. Samuel L Jackson has a little bit of a fun but he does a lot of explaining too. It’s just some kind of curse on this movie.

I really hated it. It might seem like I am being harsh but I really was that bored. The movie didn’t say anything to me or have a message I could appreciate or anything. I just kept wondering when it would be over and I could go home.

Overall Grade- D-

DO BETTER TIM!!!!