The innocent peculiar children versus the monstrous peculiar adults.
I thought it should have been a Steven Spielberg film, but he would have compromised on the visually frightening negative characters. Particularly from the little children's angle who are the regular target audience for a theme like this. Even in his recent 'The BFG', you know how the giants were portrayed. So Tim Burton was the right choice and he did his best. But not everybody agrees on that, even I was slightly disappointed. I mean technically it sounded so awesome, but the story was not that impressive. Because of too familiarity, except the peculiar characters.
It was based on the young adult book of the same name. The story of a boy named Jake. After his grandfather's murder, he goes to Wales to find the children from an island home about the stories he had heard when he was a little. He discovers they are intentionally stuck in a time loop to avoid their enemies from striking them. But what they feared is about the come true, so now how they plan to defeat after half a century hiding from them is to be told in the rest of the segment.
As a children's film fan, I wanted to like it, but not fully satisfied. It was a two hour long film, the first half was an introduction that we saw everything from its trailers and teasers. So I lost interest in those parts, but once the clash between the good and bad had began, the film started to give something new. Again the final battle at the fair should have been designed better. I thought Samuel L. Jackson was not untilised well.
The major issue with the film was the narration not trying to take a big step in the story development. Felt like they are aiming for a sequel, so they are avoiding to give out everything in here itself. Similar to the first 'Twilight' film, which was too boring drama. It is almost out of the big screen now and the rating further going to drop. The film critics bashed it, but seems most of the people and film fanatics enjoyed it. I hope they will make 'Hallow City' and I'll be waiting for that.
6/10