Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a series of Young Adult fantasy books by Ransom Riggs that can be read by an audience of both young or old. The magical, supernatural world of the Peculiars is fascinating as we get to jump through history and experience it second-hand through Riggs’ marvellous detail.

As you can probably tell, I am a massive fan of the books and I marathoned all three of them in four days. You can read my review of the first book here. I eagerly anticipated the day when the adaptation came out and when the 29th September came around, I dragged my best friend to the first showing.

The film is two hours long and it’s easy to say that the first hour is spectacular. The script and acting were bumpy, to begin with, but it soon found it’s footing and showed us a world that was extraordinary with amazing visual effects and gorgeous cinematography.

The film follows sixteen-year-old Jacob as he – following his Grandfather’s wishes – travels to Wales, UK to find Miss Peregrine and her home full of the peculiar children that Jacob’s Grandfather used to tell him so much about.

There’s excitement, adventure, villains and peculiar abilities such as a boy filled with bees, a girl who can float, a boy who can bring things back to life and a girl with a second mouth at the back of her head.

It’s after the first hour that the film starts to disappoint. The plot becomes messy and ridiculous. There’s a scene where there are skeletons fighting and accompanying the scene is music that is upbeat and consists of slight drum and bass characteristics. It felt wrong, cheesy and everything that I didn’t want in the book to movie adaptation.

If you haven’t read the books, then you will absolutely love this film from start to finish (maybe not the skeleton scene but…) and if you have read all of the books then just be weary. It’s not the best film that Tim Burton has done and it’s not the worst.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a good film. I just wish that the last 45 minutes were different and that they had stuck to the book a bit more.