Friday, 4 January 2019

MOVIE REVIEW: MISS PEREGINE’S SCHOOL FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN (2016)


2016 really outdid itself with bad movies. But while Suicide Squad and Batman V Superman were bad, somehow this movie (while slightly more competently put together) feels worse. Tim Burton’s latest offering to the world of cinema feels like a pandering mess.

The movie follows a boy (probably 17 years old or something) who is the grandson of someone else. The grandfather tells the son stories of kids with powers who he knows.  As the boy believes these to be true when he is too old to believe in this, thus leading to social isolation and bullying. He is also a social outcast with no friends.

However, this all changes when he goes into a time loop, meets these people with powers, and has to save the day. Because, shock of shocks, he has the most special ability of all: the ability to see invisible monsters who hunt these people. This makes him one of the most special of special people, just like his grandfather.

Samuel L. Jackson plays the villain leading the monsters. Eva Green plays the headmistress. And the movie degenerates into a pandering mess. I can’t be bothered to finish explaining the plot because it is dumb. The social outcast find his place, falls in love with a hot girl his age just waiting around for him, and generally being the most awesome person in the world. And all this is generally a kids movie.

However, the bad guys also graphically eat body parts and the invisible monsters are body horror. This is a painful juxtaposition. At least movies like Eragon didn’t have horror in amongst them as it went about its wish fulfilment. Here, we have some adult themes (i.e. isolationism) with very adult horror in a movie to appeal to kids.

This doesn’t even mention things like the horrors (capable of killing whole schools) being killed by one crossbow bolt. Or how all the love developments just happen without any sort of character development. Or how the hero suddenly becomes a confident tactician and warrior despite being useless and with no training. At least Green Lantern had that short training montage.

So definitely a movie to miss. I can’t believe I am doing this, but I would recommend Batman V Superman over this. At least it doesn’t try to pander to the stereotypical outcast nerd who is suddenly awesome as it goes about being awful.

0 out of 5 peculiar waffles.

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