Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

8/10

Starring

Jim Carrey
Liam Aiken
Emily Browning
Timothy Spall
Catherine O'Hara
Billy Connolly
Cedric the Entertainer
Luis Guzman
Jennifer Coolidge
Meryl Streep

Directed by Brad Silberling

Till today, when I see strange events happening I will say, “A series of unfortunate events.” This movie has added a phrase to my vocabulary, not because it is a great movie, nor because the actors were exceptional, nor because of the part played by the ensemble cast of stars. The movie added this phrase because of the wonderful display of evil by Count Olaf (Jim Carrey).

He embodied the character in a way that made me just get engrossed in the movie. I cannot state the number of times me and my sister sat watching this movie, just to see him play this character. The thing that makes me dip my hat for Jim in this movie is the various aliases of Count Olaf, which he had to play and did so well. Now I must warn you, you can see the intent of the character, but I did not feel it was menacing enough in my view.

The story and movie adaptation cover three of Lemony’s books, The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window, which are the first three books in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The story is of three children whose parents died in a fire and left them with a considerable amount of money. Their uncle Count Olaf, who wants the money for himself, is ready to do anything required to make sure the children are murdered, so that he will be left with the money. His various attempts at trying to get these children killed, is what leads to a tale of unfortunate events.

The three children, Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) were also exceptional in the movie, especially Emily Browning.

As much as love seeing this movie, I must say it departs from the books to which it is based, and the plot seems rushed. Like it wanted to get on with the intro and start the plotting of killing these children. Also, the ending did not give me the satisfaction I would have wanted, it was not a good enough ending to a good movie which I had fun seeing.

Here is a trivia for you, due to the risk of working with infants, four scenes involving Sunny Baudelaire required CGI with motion capture technology.

Would I recommend this movie, yes it is fun, I wish there was a sequel to follow up the movie so that the ending would matter or add up to something.