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Review: A Series of Unfortunate Events
I saw this moving Thursday night thanks to Cynthetiq who hooked me up. He will receive much love and an optional handjob later.
What was I expecting from this movie? Sort of a mix between Harry Potter and the Adams Family. It was, pretty much that. A troupe of young characters with individual talents skirt danger and adults, all with a dark, eerie tint about it. None of it is terribly exciting... for me at least. The word I would use is mesmerizing. It's just a compelling thing to watch, if for nothing but the visuals.
There were three things that I found wrong with this movie in it's entirety.
Jim Carrey was his old self. He never really let much of the character he was playing show... you always knew it was Jim Carrey. So that raises the question... was the character Jim or was Jim the character? I wished he could have broken out a little real acting... that would have make Count Olaf slightly more believable for we more cerebral adults.
For as dark as this movie made itself out to be, there was not one truely satisfying moment relating to mood, atmosphere, or circumstance. The movie just rolls along on it's storyline tracks and never takes a sharp turn. Mostly everything is predictable or contrived. You sorta begin to beg for a little twist here and there... but you know exactly what's gonna happen at every turn.
While there is a 'moral' to the story and a general feel-good vibe underlying the whole thing, there is also an attempted mystery scenario that develops itself a little as the movie goes on. The sad part is, it never becomes too compelling to even care about. So much potential - very little execution.
I think these three points add up to firmly place this movie as a kid's movie. It's a kid's movie made up to make the kids think that they're seeing an adult movie. It's like those Goosebumps books - huge hit with kids, but to the trained and expectant eye, it's about as dreary as a walk in the park on a spring day.
On a side note, I wanted to see this movie primarily to stare at Emily Browning's lips for 2 hours. I know she's only 15 or 16, but I'm blaming the studio for dressing her up like that. Some of those costumes that she wore were amazing. ...And those lips! She also does a fairly fine job of acting.
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