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

Review - LS's ASoUE (2004)
Delorted - wrote on 11/14/07

When Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall) walked onto the beach that day and told Klaus (Liam Aiken), Violet (Emily Browning), and Sunny (Kara Hoffman) that their parents had died in a fire, they knew their lives were about to change. Lemony Snicket (Jude Law) tells the tale of the Baudelaire orphans and their money-grubbing guardian Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events."

I'm sorry to say that this is not an entirely pleasant review. Actually, there's only one problem I had with this movie, which is the fact that the people who made this film thought it would be better to made is a misshapen, poorly planned out film with extra scenes and plots that had nothing to do with the source material than just make it a fun movie. I have read all three books the film is based on and I think it would have been very easy to connect the three and even leave more room for a sequel without adding an entirely new plotline that had no logic to it whatsoever. I did like the train scene though, which leads me to the positives.

The visuals are fantastic in this movie. There are so many parts where I found myself mentally pointing at the screen and saying (still mentally), "That's a great shot." There are lots of fancy camera angles and visuals to please the eye, and they totally steal the show in many instances. And speaking of stealing the show:

Carrey is great as always. His portrayal of the evil Count is different than one would expect knowing beforehand that it was Carrey in the part. He does do his thing like normal, but he stays in character very well. Aiken and Browning need some acting lessons, but for the roles they had to take on I thought they did very well. I was kind of upset that they cast somebody as tall and not nerdy as Aiken, however. He just didn't seem to fit the character physically.

The movie is a very well done but very poorly planned out dark childrens' comedy that shows Dreamworks can make quality movies for kids. I suppose it helped that the not quite as bad Nickelodeon was in on it too.

Acting: 7/10
Writing: 4/10
Video/Editing: 9/10
Audio/Music: 8/10
Entertainment: 7/10

Final Score: 7/10