Asa Butterfield, Eva Green, Samuel L. Jackson, Ella Purnell, Terrence Stamp, Judi Dench, Chris O’Dowd

Tim Burton

Author Ransom Riggs’ “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is right up director Tim Burton‘s alley. Riggs’ story is about a loner trying to find his place in the world – a story that the filmmaker behind “Edward Scissorhands,” “Big Fish” and “Ed Wood” is certainly no stranger to. It should come as no surprise, then, that Burton works up some small, charming wonders with this heartfelt piece of spectacle.

Jake’s (Asa Butterfield) grandfather, Abraham Portman (Terence Stamp), was a great man – an adventurer and soldier who battled fantastical beasts. These stories, according to Jake’s dad (Chris O’Dowd) and everyone else at school, were nothing but fairytales and lies, so Jake stopped believing they were real a long time ago. One night, the teenager goes to visit his grandfather and discovers his body outside the house with his eyes removed. Although everyone tells Jake that he’s crazy for supposedly seeing the mystery man and beast that ripped out his grandfather’s eyes, he wants answers. Remembering the stories his grandfather told him, Jake goes searching for Miss Alma LeFay Peregrine (Eva Green) and her orphanage for peculiar children in Wales, where he uncovers a “loop” created by Miss Peregrine that allows her and the children to live the same day in the 1940s over and over again. Later on, a threatening figure played by Samuel L. Jackson enters the picture, but up until then, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is a character-driven tale with a nicely intimate scope.

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Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis

Gavin Hood

Much like the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons comic book miniseries “Watchmen,” Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi military novel “Ender’s Game” was deemed unfilmable by the author for years. But just as Zack Snyder found a way to bring “Watchmen” to the big screen, so too has Gavin Hood with “Ender’s Game.” Despite having never read the novel myself, it’s easy to see why Hollywood had so much trouble adapting the source material, because although Hood has succeeded in some respects, it feels like a more streamlined version that’s missing a lot of the complexity that made the novel so revered in the first place. It’s like “Harry Potter” meets “Full Metal Jacket,” and while that’s certainly an intriguing mash-up, the movie doesn’t quite live up to the book’s reputation.

Following an attack on Earth by an alien species known as the Formics – in which millions of people were killed before a brave fighter pilot single-handedly defeated the enemy fleet – the planet’s military leaders have begun planning for their return. At the forefront of the defense effort is Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford), who runs a program training gifted youngsters with the best tactical minds in the hope that they can lead Earth to victory should the insect-like Formics return again. One of the program’s newest recruits is 12-year-old outsider Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a brilliant strategist whom Graff believes has the potential to save their entire species. Sent to an orbiting space station for a boot camp called Battle School to train with the other top recruits in a series of physical and mental challenges, Ender is pushed to his limits by Graff to prepare him in time for the next attack.

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