A brilliant possibility dissolves because of poor choices on the part of the producers. You have Asa Butterfield in the lead role, a young man who has been intriguing me since I saw his debut as a seriously creepy-ass young Mordred in "Merlin". And you have director Tim Burton, whose unique and fantastical world view matches the subject matter wonderfully. Unfortunately, however, the producers chose not to simply do the first book as the first film, but to start the film from the first book (exact lines and events are pulled directly from the book) and then veer off, squeezing in elements from later books in the series, presumably to get to a nice big battle at the end of the movie. It doesn't really work. The transitions seem abrupt, important information is missed and character development goes by the wayside. The book, which I greatly enjoyed, is a very complicated story. One where the world-building is done slowly and specifically. You have to understand the nature of the "peculiar children", the time travel aspects, the threats against them. Without that this is an entertaining and beautiful to watch movie, but it lacks the substance of the source material, and that is just a loss.
