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Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

To anyone who cares,

This past weekend my wife and I rented 3 movies, and we've finally finished watching all of them. The first was Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. The basic plot rundown is three incredibly intelligent children are told that their parents have just died in a disastrous fire. They have inherited an enormous fortune which cannot be used until the oldest, Violet, is of age. Until that time, they are to stay with their "closest" relative, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). They discover very quickly that the Count is only after the fortune for himself. The rest of the film is filled with antics of Count Olaf doing anything he can to acquire the fortune.

Visuals: A 4.5 is well deserved here. I really enjoyed the look and feel of the film. All the different areas that are travelled to present their own mood. The visuals give you the same feeling you get from a crazy Tim Burton film.

Sound: As far as sound goes, I'd say a 4. The musical score is very fitting to this film. It doesn't stand out from the rest of the film, and if you've read my other reviews you know that I believe that's a good thing. The sound of this movie fits right in with the visuals as well.

Story: As far as story goes, I only give this a 3.5. I enjoyed the smoothness of Jude Law's narration as Lemony Snicket. But there are some weak points in the story. The reason I say this is because there were times where I was wondering how certain things happened and they were never explained. I enjoyed the actions of the characters more than I did the actual storyline of the movie.

Special Features: Based on what I watched, I give the bonus material a 2. Keep in mind that I rented this movie, so this is based on the one disc version of the dvd. I'm sure the 2 disc set is much better in this catagory. With that stated, I watched the deleted scenes, the outtake reel, and a very small part of a featurette called "Making an Evil Character" or something like that. I liked the outtakes because it's basically Jim Carrey being his crazy self. The deleted scenes were very boring. I should note that there is also a feature commentary with director Brad Silberling, but based on what I saw of him in the small amount of the featurette I watched, I have a feeling that the commentary would be very dull.

Entertainment Value: Overall entertainment value... hmmm... I say a 3.5. The visuals of this film were definitely my favorite part of the whole thing. My wife enjoyed the movie more than I did, and I don't know if we'll end up owning it. I wouldn't mind receiving it as a gift for Christmas or something. But I don't think I'll go out and spend $20 on it myself. Worth renting just for the visuals.

posted by stuelu @ 10:14 AM