I read the books, and you know what? I didn't love them. The film? It's actually pretty good, and I really like how they changed things.
Basically, the books have a lot of stuff going on that personally failed to engage me, and as I read, I could never pick up a theme. This film makes it a bit clearer that the idea of temporal isolation being messed up is the big picture, and the storytelling is nicely streamlined.
Changes? Yep. They're there. For one, Emma is now Olive in peculiarity, and vice-versa. I'd hate that normally, but, no, you know what? It works. They found clever ways to rewrite Emma as a levitator, and the story doesn't suffer even though it's a pretty massive departure. Similarly, the visual and age differences were fine, too. Miss Peregrine has more of an ageless, quirky Time Lord feel that makes her more clearly magical and interesting, and Bronwyn being a little girl is a nice idea that provides greater contrast to her powers. The twins' presence was nice, too. For most of the movie, I was wondering what they were going to do, since they weren't physically present in the book, and they spend most of the film doing nothing, but there's a pretty satisfying conclusion to their "arc", if it can be called that.
The story itself takes a turn at the end, and I'm okay with the resolution making it an isolated story; the next books never got much better to me. There's some time-travel stuff that happens, almost Back to the Future-esque and whatnot, but it's fine and still works with the lore, which is mostly intact and not too complicated.
Going into specifics would take multiple pages, so I'm just going to call myself pleasantly surprised. Perhaps Burton's hand isn't quite as obvious as it might have been, but I don't think it should have been. For all it changes, it's an enjoyable movie that's easier to digest than the original. Go check it out.
A divergent adaptation that works.
I read the books, and you know what? I didn't love them. The film? It's actually pretty good, and I really like how they changed things.
Basically, the books have a lot of stuff going on that personally failed to engage me, and as I read, I could never pick up a theme. This film makes it a bit clearer that the idea of temporal isolation being messed up is the big picture, and the storytelling is nicely streamlined.
Changes? Yep. They're there. For one, Emma is now Olive in peculiarity, and vice-versa. I'd hate that normally, but, no, you know what? It works. They found clever ways to rewrite Emma as a levitator, and the story doesn't suffer even though it's a pretty massive departure. Similarly, the visual and age differences were fine, too. Miss Peregrine has more of an ageless, quirky Time Lord feel that makes her more clearly magical and interesting, and Bronwyn being a little girl is a nice idea that provides greater contrast to her powers. The twins' presence was nice, too. For most of the movie, I was wondering what they were going to do, since they weren't physically present in the book, and they spend most of the film doing nothing, but there's a pretty satisfying conclusion to their "arc", if it can be called that. The story itself takes a turn at the end, and I'm okay with the resolution making it an isolated story; the next books never got much better to me. There's some time-travel stuff that happens, almost Back to the Future-esque and whatnot, but it's fine and still works with the lore, which is mostly intact and not too complicated.
Going into specifics would take multiple pages, so I'm just going to call myself pleasantly surprised. Perhaps Burton's hand isn't quite as obvious as it might have been, but I don't think it should have been. For all it changes, it's an enjoyable movie that's easier to digest than the original. Go check it out.