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A Series of Unfortunate Events Movie Review

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 2004 dark comedy film starring Jim Carrey. It’s a problematic, but overall reasonably solid book adaptation.

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“It’s the letter!

The letter that never came!“

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First and foremost, this particular movie was based on the first three books in this series: ‘The Bad Beginning’, ‘The Reptile Room’ and ‘The Wide Window’. Most get similar runtime and quality treatment which was great, and I personally found the film rather faithful to the original when all is said and done with some changes even working well.

But some not so much. I did not like that the first book was used in the film’s first and last segment. That was odd, and not really needed to have been changed. And the biggest problem which really was the film’s downfall was the filmmakers’ unwillingness to go into darker places with literally all of the darkest plot points from the original novels being frustratingly sanitized here.

But other than those problematic aspects, the movie is surprisingly faithful to the source material with the majority of the most important plot beats being well transported into the big screen. I found the direction weak, but the episodic structure to the film worked quite well and it was quite fitting given the three-book adaptation choice. I also really liked the Lemony Snicket character and the narration from Jude Law which interrupted the story way too often, but at least it was very well executed and he was the perfect man for the job.

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Let’s talk about the characters now. Count Olaf is played by Jim Carrey who is an actor I simply have never liked, and at first I absolutely despised this casting choice. But I have to say that I warmed up to the eventual performance as he was goofy, yes, but at least he was highly entertaining and even quite funny at times. He worked so much better in the disguises than as Count Olaf, and the make-up was deservedly Oscar-honored as it was awesome.

The kids are all great. I found Klaus’ expanded role in the climax on the tower problematic as that befits Violet more, but both are very good here, and I found the acting performances also rather solid for child actors. But Sunny is superb, and even better than in the books. The decision to translate her mutterings with subtitles was an ingenious cinematic idea that worked stupendously and led to many very funny lines and moments.

Mr. Poe is so well played by Timothy Spall, and he’s as incompetent as ever. Uncle Monty is as sweet as he was in the book, and I found Meryl Streep’s performance as Aunt Josephine solid, but she overacted a bit too much for my liking, similarly to Jim Carrey.

The major problem this A Series of Unfortunate Events has is its unwillingness to ever go to those darkest places. We literally never see the death of the aforementioned two guardian characters, and those scenes are thus blunted and very subdued. I found the film’s episodic nature necessary for such a narrative, but the structure overall with the runtime and the placement of those scenes was problematic.

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I did like that newly invented car sequence excellent, and most of the new things worked for me, but I found the second book shortchanged in favor of the third one a bit too much. The score is good, the dialogue is faithful to the source material and the emotion is definitely there in the closing of the movie. As for the visuals, they obviously employed a lot of CGI in every set design and action scene here, but overall the darker look to it worked and I found all of the settings charming in a way, atmospheric and very Gothic.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a perfectly solid, but still problematic adaptation of the first three books in the series. They are mostly faithfully adapted which was great, but the dark edge was lost as this movie is such a sanitized, watered down version of the novels. The characterization is solid and Jim Carrey, though over-the-top, was still quite funny in the role of Count Olaf. The film also employed too much CGI, but it still looked great in the faithful, very Gothic imagery and sets. The narration and the humor are the highlights whereas the unwillingness to go to darker places hurt it in the long run.

My Rating – 3.5