KFOG REVIEW: “MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN” & “MASTERMINDS”
I haven’t loved Tim Burton’s last handful of films (“Frankenweenie” excluded), and while I enjoyed “Miss Peregrine” more than I have some of his others, it still felt like a student trying to imitate Tim Burton than the director himself.
Based on the trailers I thought it was going to be a cheesy teen romance, which it did have an element of, but ran more on the side of creepy adventure film.
Usually he brings a level of charm and a hint of whimsy to his work that helps offset some of the creepiness, but this one felt phoned in. Even the sets felt like templates in a film school student’s Tim Burton starter pack.
I thought the actors all did fine jobs, particularly for a film that relied on young characters I didn’t find any of them unpalatable which is the risk you run when aiming for that Hunger Games demographic.
Plot wise it got rather convoluted, with some questionable space time manipulation.
I did appreciate that it was an original (well, adaptation from the novel by Ransom Riggs) story, which there hasn’t been nearly enough of this year.
The other film this week was “Masterminds” from Jared Hess, who will probably be best known for “Napoleon Dynamite.” He will certainly not be known for this, not in a good way.
While the cast are all talented and funny in their own right, this film was not worthy of their talents.
Based on the true story of a $17 million dollar cash heist, the film squanders the talents of Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Kristen Wiig, Zach Galifanakis, Owen Wilson, and Jason Sudeikis. I can only assume they all owed Jared Hess a favor somehow.
Their caricatures of white trash (with the exception of Leslie Jones who plays a straight laced law enforcement officer, and Jason Sudeikis who plays a hit man) don’t even seem good enough to be offensive.
This is my ultimate summary of the film: while it got a few laughs out of me, one member of the audience snored loudly through most of it, and I laughed more cumulatively at the blooper reel in the credits than I did the entire film.
Use your best judgement based on that….