I'm not too worried about giving spoilers on this one. I don't think it did well, and I don't think anyone else in my circle of friends has read these books.
I'd read the books and enjoyed them, so I posted the trailer last year irritated because it looked like it wasn't going to follow the books at all. It didn't, but I can't say that it didn't entirely. I could complain and normally, as a purist, there'd be a lot to complain about. But I think what they did with this series is similar to what happened to the Lemony Snicket series. They didn't want to do more than one movie and there were something like 14 Lemony Snicket books. So, there were some elements from a couple of different stories squeezed into the movie which, with other additional material that wasn't in the series, led around to the revelation from the last book. (I accidentally spoiled this for a person who was reading the series because I hadn't even read the first book when I saw the movie.) A similar approach is taken in the Peregrine series. Instead of planning to make three movies to match the three books, they decided to condense the whole story into one movie, cutting out the over arching plot, and writing a simpler ending to make a fast paced, one-off project. And the movie did stay pretty faithful to the story of the first book up to a certain point. Then they skewed it into an entirely different direction from which the books went in order to wrap it up quickly. Like I said, normally I would find it insulting, but I find I can't be as critical of one movie based on a book series as I am with films that have assumed the responsibility of adapting entire book series such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. In a way what they did with these books made sense because the books had a slower pace and a darker tone that probably wouldn't have translated well into film.
My chief disappointment lies in the fact that it showed a distinct lack of creativity in not being able to work with the characters as they were designed in the book. The peculiarities, personalities, and ages of the most of the children were much different. I can understand that they had to rewrite the story to accommodate one movie, but surely this could've been done without changing characters, drastically in some cases, as well. Most disappointing was the main peculiar character of Emma. In the book her peculiarity is fire and in the movie she floats and manipulates air. That's kind of a big difference, especially since there was already a different girl in the books, Olive, that floated. They gave Olive the fire powers in the movie and made her a teenager (she was the youngest little girl in the book.) This was also done to assist the revised story, but I think this is a legitimate complaint. If the script was going to be "in the spirit of the books," at least they could've kept the familiarity of the characters, even if there wasn't time to fully develop them as there is in a long series. Then there was Miss Peregrine herself. The books paint her as a motherly, school marm type. The Peregrine of the movie has the appearance of a cougar. She's not, of course... it's not that kind of movie. But I have to wonder if Tim Burton was pining for Helena Bonham Carter with this casting choice. Neither her look nor personality fit the mood of the movie much less the books - she was too cartoonish. And they made the time travel element more convoluted than it needed to be, somehow resurrecting the grandfather character, Abe, at the end. However, he's played by Terrence Stamp, so I can't say I wasn't glad to see him again.
The special effects were good and I liked the design of the hollowgasts. The character of the dad was everything I expected him to be as was Enoch. I was surprised at Samuel L. Jackson's appearance, but it was actually agreeable to the alternate plot and he's just good no matter what he does. Some of the vintage photographs from the books make their way into different scenes of the movie. They were an important part of the books and they help to ease the pain of seeing a book series that is so poorly adapted. If I was rating it, I think I could give it three of five stars for effort, though.
It was interesting to watch and the actors were very good performers, but when I want to relive it, I'll just read the books again.
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