Overall Rating
 Awesome: 41.25%
Worth A Look: 33.75%
Average: 17.5%
Pretty Bad: 4.38%
Total Crap: 3.13%
11 reviews, 94 user ratings
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| Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events |
by Erik Childress
"Better Than All Three Harry Potter Films"
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Family films expand the gauntlet each year from the fantastic to the pull-all-your-hair-out-with-a-socket-wrench-awful. For every Incredibles, Polar Express and Shrek 2, you get a Garfield, (gulp) Scooby-Doo 2 and (double gulp) Baby Geniuses 2. Everyone polishes up their praise for the Harry Potter films, stories with a lot of magic, but for my taste possess a weak affinity for red herringed Hardy Boys triviality that suck out a lot of the enchantment. Allow me to then steer the Harry Potter faithful to what will hopefully become the next big franchise. I may not have dabbled in either of the phenomenons on the page, but based on the movies alone, the first Lemony Snicket is superior to all three of the current Harry Potters.This isn’t Disney and it certainly isn’t Pixar, so don’t expect a happy little short film after that Paramount logo. Our narrator, Lemony Snicket (Jude Law), puts a stop to that right away and gives the audience a last chance to escape before settling into the dark tale of the Baudelaire children. In an introduction that may have influenced Wes Anderson’s Tenenbaum family, the three orphaned children consist of Violet (Emily Browning, a young dead-ringer for Angelina Jolie), who can turn anything into an invention; Klaus (Liam Aiken), the bookworm who remembers everything he reads and little baby Sunny (Kara & Shelby Hoffman), a world-champion biter that would rival Richard Kiel’s Jaws from the Bond series.
After their parents are wiped out in a fire, they are sent to live with their closest living relative, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), beloved by his own admission. He has no interest in foster parenting, only the large fortune tied up with the young ones. Paperwork deems no access to the money until Violet’s 18th birthday. Oh well, he’ll just have to kill them. Lemony Snicket might best serve parents to heed more caution at this point, but it’s impossible to take your eyes off of what’s to come.
Olaf’s schemes are outsmarted and the children whisked away from guardian-to-guardian, including the embracing snake surveyor, Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly) and the barely functional every-phobic, Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep), who only finds comfort in words and language. Olaf is relentless though and shows up in an array of comical disguises that lend credence to the old belief of children being able to see what adults cannot.
Arson, snakes, hurricanes, murder, man-eating leeches and a plot development out of Jerry Lee Lewis’ scrapbook notwithstanding, this is beyond perfect family entertainment. Nothing is dumbed down and the cute factor is left off the table and that shows a respect for the youngsters who will gobble up this gothic delight. There may be darkness inherent, but it arrives with such a cheeky sensibility that it would be downright puritanical for parents to get into any kind of a twist over what their children’s thine eyes are seeing. Hell, I even jumped a foot once and most horror films can barely make me blink.
Jim Carrey has been belting both comedic and dramatic roles out of the park for some time, but Count Olaf is something special. Both menacing and over-the-top, Carrey finally has the Peter Sellers transformation that he’s been looking for and audiences have been anticipating. His Italian and Crusty Seadog characterizations bring to mind not only Sellers but Alec Guinness, and the blend of physicality and awkward imposture fit Olaf like a glove and becomes a riotous, classic character to treasure. It’s magnificent to watch Carrey go nose-to-nose with Streep, who in turn amps up the quirkiness and makes a great foil for the children, perfectly played by Browning and Aiken.
Lemony Snicket is precisely the sort of film I would prescribe to my children and certainly will to my friends’ little ones as well. How wonderful is it not only to have a film that appeals towards the less sunny parts of the world, but allow the Baudelaires to recognize and then use their brains to work through it? There’s a sense of accomplishment involved and the sight of Violet’s signature hair tying is every bit as exciting as any hero getting that second wind you know is going to lead to success. It’s easy when you have the benefit of magic to solve all your problems. It’s a bit tougher when you’re forced to create a plan on the spot when trapped in a locked car on train tracks.The moments of ingenuity have been cleverly fashioned by author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) and director Brad Silberling matches the ideas with an unrestrained excitement that all ages will appreciate. Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam are obvious first choices for the material, But Silberling has obvious read his Grimm and Dahl and positively brings it to life. With three underappreciated gems already under his belt (Casper, City of Angels, Moonlight Mile) here is the film that should keep Silberling on the moviegoing radar. The Lemony books may not be as increasingly dense as the Harry Potter series, but the film version has managed to squeeze more fun and magic out of the first three Lemony Snicket stories than any one of that one whos name I shall not speak of anymore.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=11348&reviewer=198
originally posted: 12/17/04 16:10:26
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USA
17-Dec-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 26-Apr-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
16-Dec-2004
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