Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Burton scales his finale down to the size of a tourist boardwalk for an unexpectedly gripping crowd-pleaser of an action scene.

We get the playfulness of seeing quirky magic powers mixed with the familiarity of how a time loop plays out. Add in Burton’s authorial visual stamp and what we’ve got is an extremely pleasing formula. It gels as Tim Burton’s best (non-musical) live-action movie for 20 years.

Tim Burton's direction reminds us of the distinct, peculiar coyness that was always at the heart of his best films.

Goldman’s frequently amusing script is the secret ingredient that makes “Miss Peregrine” such an appropriate fit for Burton’s peculiar sensibility, allowing the director to revisit and expand motifs and themes from his earlier work.

For a time, an appealing gentleness prevails that's rooted in this unique inter-generational romance, a feeling augmented in particular by Purnell's slow-blooming flower of a performance, and if the film had remained focused more on the improbabilities of this love story, it might have emerged as something rather special.