Sightlines · reception
How Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was received
2016 · Tim Burton · Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on Sightlines
The arc
Landed in 2016 to shrugging, mixed reviews as another entry in the 'late Burton slump' narrative, and it hasn't been dramatically reclaimed — though some defenders now rank it as the most watchable thing he made in that whole 2010s stretch, mostly on the strength of Eva Green.
What’s debated
It's a standing exhibit in the eternal 'when exactly did Tim Burton lose it — and did he ever get it back?' debate, with a side dispute over whether the film wastes a perfectly cast Eva Green.
Its footprint
It arrived at the fag end of the post-Potter/Hunger Games YA-adaptation gold rush and is often filed as one of that boom's last gasps; among cinephiles its main afterlife is fueling 'Eva Green is the queen of genre cinema and deserves better material' posts.
Where it stands
A minor late-Burton entry — not hated, not loved, mostly remembered by Eva Green devotees and people cataloging the YA-adaptation era.
Did you know? During the press tour, Tim Burton's comments to Bustle about diversity in his casting ('things either call for things, or they don't') sparked a major backlash — notable because Samuel L. Jackson's villain was widely noted as the first prominent Black character in a Burton film.
Named by the director
- Jason and the Argonauts (1963) — Burton said the film's stop-motion-flavored skeleton battle was a deliberate tribute to this Harryhausen classic.
- Ray Harryhausen — Burton, a lifelong Harryhausen devotee, cited him as the inspiration behind the film's animated-skeleton sequence.
A Deleuzian reading of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children →