Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)December 20th, 2004
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Question: Is it possible to have a big, heavily cross-promoted family film released during the holidays that isn't completely ruined by a ham-fisted, ridiculously over-the-top performance from a comedian? You know, like The Grinch or The Cat in the Hat?
Answer: Not really, but the situation is getting a little better. Jim Carrey doesn't so much ruin Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events as he does make it much less dark and threatening than the series of book upon which the film is based. Oh, it's still plenty sinister, but Carrey's Count Olaf is too much with the slap-stick and not enough with the menacing danger. Less Ace Ventura and more Sideshow Bob, please.
Events, based on the first three of a series of books penned by Daniel Handler (under the nom de plume Lemony Snicket), is about a three siblings who, after their parents die in a mysterious fire, are shipped off to live with their nearest living relative, Count Olaf (Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Because the Baudelaire children have also inherited a great deal of money from their parents, and because Olaf is the embodiment of all things evil, he decides to kill his wards to have at their cash.
The murder attempt is foiled, at which point the Baudelaires are sent to relative after relative, who each meet mysterious fates after rubbing elbows with strange characters who always turn out to be Olaf in an elaborate disguise (there's a nice tip to Lon Chaney in one scene). I've read the first three Snicket books, and found them to get rather repetitive after a while, which is probably why director Brad Silberling (Moonlight Mile) and screenwriter Robert Gordon (Men in Black II) jumbled up some of the books, and left a lot of their material out completely.
Comparisons to the Harry Potter films are inevitable, since both deal with orphans, parents who were killed, and a great malevolent force trying to murder children. Both are also filled with intricate sets, snapping visual effects, and nice performances from adults and urchins alike. Unlike Potter, however, Snicket features way more "big picture" foreshadowing.
The ball was dropped a little with Carrey's tomfoolery (he's half-Max Schreck-as-Nosferatu and half-Reverend Jim Ignatowski), as well as the portrayal of little Sunny Baudelaire, whose subtitled lines are a little too cutesy for the subject matter. One can't help but wonder how much better Events might have been in the hands of a Tim Burton or a Terry Gilliam, though. Like the first two Potter films, Events is helmed by a.uh.story-driven (read: less visual) director. Here's to hoping it doesn't take three Snicket pictures to turn the reins over to that franchise's version of Alfonso Cuarón.
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