Lemony Snickety

Movie Review: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

I’ve gotta admit: I never thought that I ever would have sat down to watch this film. That’s because before I saw the film, I was always discouraging my little brothers from reading the books. I really hated them.

But after I saw the movie, my impressions of the books changed. Now I’m reading the second book, and at the rate I’m reading I’ll through to book 11 by the end of next week.

It’s hard to say what my favorite thing about this movie was, so I’ll start off with what I didn’t like. The score was very well done, and I loved it. I might consider buying the soundtrack. However, the thing that’s holding me back from doing that is that at some points, the score got kinda repetitive. Another thing that I didn’t really like was Emily Browning, who played the oldest Baudelaire Violet. She’s pretty cute, but her acting wasn’t that great in some crucial scenes. Her character seemed to be inconsistent. And at some points the set and costume design was overly dramatic, and too reminiscent of a Tim Burton film.

Other than those things, I loved everything else. The script adaptation was severely disappointing to my little brothers because it was so unlike the books. And after reading the first one, I have to say that he’s right. But the adaptation was marvelous anyhow because of it’s ability to pack the morals and themes of the books into little five minute scenes. The first book takes almost 120 pages to do that. The film managed to deliver the theme of the books best with Violet’s line in the closing scene of the film: “…What might seem like a series of unfortunate evens may actually be the beginning of a beautiful journey.” It also keeps the book’s satire and parody of grammar—except in the film it makes the parodies about cinema. One thing they did was have Sunny, the infant Baudelaire, blatantly tell Jim Carrey’s Count Olaf, “Bite me.” Understanding Sunny’s literary role would make you appreciate that, but it cracks you up just the same.

I did say that the score was a bit repetitive at some parts. But other than that, the score was incredible for such a film. On that note, so was the set and costume design (granted their Burton shadow). And the film was extremely well cast. My favorite actor was Liam Aiken, who played the scholarly Klaus Baudelaire. I sure hope to see more of this young actor. He did an incredible job and made many young actors that get so much limelight look ridiculous. Kudos to Liam! Others in the cast that I was pleased with—other than Jim Carrey, of course—include Meryl Streep, Catherine O’Hara, Dustin Hoffman (who played a small cameo and has no relation to Kara and Shelby Hoffman, the twins that played Sunny), Cedric the Entertainer, and Jude Law. For Jude Law, the credits specifically say “Jude Law as the voice of Lemony Snicket”, but I would venture to say that Law was the silouette of Lemony Snicket as well. And now that I’ve read the book, I can say that I am very appreciative of the mysterious, subtle yet gentle Snicket tone style that Law maintains in his narration. Readers will easily identify his voice with Snicket’s in the books.

As for Jim Carrey—well, you know that he wasn’t bad. After reading the books, I see that the villainous Count Olaf was much more serious than the movie portrays. Nevertheless, Carrey’s comic adaptation was very good. There are some parts where he just plain freaks you out with his vile intentions, and others where you’re chuckling at the hilarious antics of Carrey’s three characters.

Overall, I must say that I had to re-check the box to make sure that this remarkably done film was produced by Nickelodeon Studios. I recommend Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events to everyone. I used to hate even the thought of saying that, but I really like the messages—especially the moral of maintaining high hopes despite evil around you. Viewers really should be warned: this book includes many disasters such as a house fire, an exploding door knob, a man with hooks for hands, cold oatmeal, a long knife, and a nuptial—a word which here means “having to do with legal marriage” law book. The ending isn’t very pleasant and somewhat unpredictable. So if you don’t like movies with unfortunate events like tragedies or conspiracies or fighting with only your brain against all odds—in other words, if you don’t enjoy watching a children’s film about real life, then I strongly suggest that you watch The Littlest Elf, which stars Kim Jerry.