LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS - Film Review · 9:25pm Apr 18th, 2017
NOTE: Although I saw the film (and wrote its review) today, I wanted to do something era accurate as I always write my reviews. This film was theatrically released December 17, 2004 and I stylized my review to make it look like it was written on that day.
LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
***1/2
Dark, creepy, sarcastic, demented
A Nickelodeon production for Paramount and DreamWorks; directed by Brad Silberling; script by Robert Gordon from Lemony Snicket’s novels THE BAD BEGINNING, THE REPTILE ROOM and THE WIDE WINDOW; produced by Laurie MacDonald, Walter F. Parkes and Jim Van Wick; score by Thomas Newman; cinematographed by Michael E. Kahn, A.C.E.; photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC; production design by Rick Heinricks; special effects by ILM. PG rating for mild profanities and creepy moments. At Park Place, El Con, Century Park, Foothills, DeAnza, Desert Sky, Cinemark.
The players are Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Timothy Spall, Catherine O'Hara, Billy Connolly, Cedric the Entertainer, Luis Guzmán, Jennifer Coolidge, and Meryl Streep. Jude Law is the voice of Lemony Snicket.
It’s that time of year again, that for Hollywood to find a token family film to release. (because Christmas is the season for kids, amirite?) Next week, Fox is branching out with FAT ALBERT, but this week’s offering is decidedly different. In marketing LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, Paramount and DreamWorks have elected to tell people that the movie is “taking the cheer out of Christmas”; “Mishaps, misadventures, mayhem, oh joy” read many of the ads you’re probably reading for this film. Per Variety (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117914812), a lot of families were creeped out by the marketing and blamed the two studios for advertising what they felt was an intentionally anti-holiday film. If you’re reading this, you’d better take advantage of one thing: This movie has NOTHING to do with the holidays. All Paramount and DreamWorks execs were doing was finding some non-sequitirs to place in their ads to make light of the fact that they’re releasing it in December. They were doing what Mel Brooks would have done in the old days.
In the same article, it states that executives had a tough time deciding which film to put out, and were faced with two options: a film that plays like one of his novels, or a film that’s more family friendly; they went with the second option. Frankly, if I never read the Lemony Snicket novels in the first place, how the heck am I supposed to know what they left out? Because, from what I’m watching, THIS is seriously entertaining, creepy stuff. If I like this film, I’m pretty sure I’ll find a day to dawdle down to Bookman’s and pick up a copy of one of the Lemony Snicket novels to read and maybe I’ll like it even more or as much as the Lemony Snicket novels.
Now the film opened on a strange note that roped me into a different film for a minute: It has a delightfully Rankin/Bass-esque opening sequence which would’ve lured us to THE LITTLEST ELF (complete with a ™ under his name). It’s well-animated and then that film stops with an announcement that we are not going to watch that picture, that that film’s waiting for the filmgoer at another aisle.
Thus the darker tone of the film is set, interrupted at minute marks by Snicket’s commentaries. He introduces us to two kids whose houses caught on fire and whose parents have vanished.
Enter Mr. Poe, played professionally by Timothy Spall, who takes them to the home of Count Olaf, who is played by Jim Carrey. And this is a comedy of course; Jim Carrey is one of those folks known for stealing scenes and playing a jerk in every comedy he is in (which I commend him for) and this picture is no exception. He lures the kids into doing household chores such as making dinner (pasta). Problem is, he feels the kids didn’t cook enough of a dinner (even though he didn’t specify anything else) so he tries punishing them in different ways that the kids end up trying to thwart with them succeeding in times, sort of like MATILDA did in Danny DeVito’s film about her; director Brad Silberling seems to have inherited the directorial schtick that DeVito put into that film.
Olaf’s first evil act here takes place at the general store, his parking position there places the kids RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRAIN TRACKS. Naturally, they use things in his car (an toy elf head, wires and some inner rubber) and throw the elf head at the track placement forcing the train away from the car.
After they survive, they go into another house, one occupied by a gardener played by Billy Connolly, sort of a look- and sound-alike of John Cleese, who I thought played that role at first. To thwart his plans to adopt him (he feels genuine affection for the kids) Olaf comes into his house, dressed as a likeness of the gardener named Dr. Stephano. Carrey, er, Olaf, could’ve picked a different voice for that likeness though, as the voice he chose for it sounds like that of the more likeable Fozzie Bear. Never mind THAT though, as the kids try to convince Connolly’s character that it’s really Olaf impersonating someone else (without success as Olaf ends up killing the snake) which leads to an investigation with detectives finding no evidence to support the kids’ case at first.
Mr. Poe then drives them house to the house of their much more committed new caretaker, a grammatician type named Aunt Josephine who is played by Meryl Streep. Olaf then dresses as a fisherman Captain Sham. Aunt Josephine “falls” in love with him and then (seemingly) commits suicide in her house, an impression given by Olaf’s letter to the kids, loaded with forced grammatical mistakes that hide the subliminal message that she is hiding in a place called Curdled Cave. The kids find it and she unleashes her pure anger at Olaf for forcing her to write the letter. The kids put her on a boat intent on taking her home (she is reluctant to do so at first) on which she eats a banana. Bad sign as leeches show up and they have to run away from them before it’s too late. Then (un?)fortunately, Count Olaf comes to the rescue, bringing anyone but Aunt Josephine. It’s in THAT instance where she dies.
Olaf ends up staging a play (that oddly enough is the same is reality) in which the eldest kid ends up marrying him. In staging the play, he forces the baby in a cage up the tower and the girl to ignore the boy’s honest viewpoint of the “play” (titled THE MARVELOUS MARRIAGE) and then who’s in the house near the caged baby but a hooked madman (played by Puerto Rican actor Luis Guzman) who is revealed both as an accomplice of Olaf’s and as the murderer of their parents. Naturally, he wants the kids up in Heaven with them so he tries to get them up there, using his hook to try and kill them. His plan is thwarted though because he forces himself out the window dangling on a rope and of course, Olaf’s revealed to be the vicious, wicked man he is, and then is given poetic justice; as the narrator implies, he then serves what we would casually call community service (but then the narrator talks in a manner that’s anything but casual) and then vanishes beyond return. Mr. Poe drives the kids off to the house where it all began.
And that’s the story.
Well, I enjoyed the film a lot. I felt that it offered a nice sense of creeps and dementia. It was dark and creepy but at places most families would find appropriate. The elf moments (left in the opening sequence) are perfect for the littlest ones who I doubt would find it comfortable to sit through the rest until he/she is, old enough for the bravery, or unless he/she already is brave. Jim Carrey plays his role in a way that isn’t at all far from the way Vincent Price would’ve played the role if he was still alive (he isn’t). Both of them had a habit of liking to look for parts in their films where it is appropriate for them to steal scenes in a grand way. And everyone here plays their roles so convincingly kids will forget that they’re just actors playing parts. And that’s becoming the norm for plenty of family films, but certainly not all of them.
- J.C.
And it's on Netflik
https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl#q=netflix+A+Series+of+Unfortunate+Events
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O32ruDhBMv8&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgbY0O3KrAo