Movie Review: Unfortunate Events (4 of 5)

(Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events)

Based on the first three books of Lemony Snicket's series, this movie is not your typical happy kid's movie. A lot of bad things happen, and they don't try to feed you the happy Disney line that if you believe in yourself the world will be perfect. You can look at it in one of two ways: First, it's a dark and morbid tale that's too disturbing for kids to see. Or, second, it's a realistic tale that shows that the world's not really perfect and sometimes, you just have to deal with it.

While it is kinda dark and morbid, it's not that disturbing. The tone of the books it is based on is actually rather light-hearted, and the movie carries that feeling to some degree. There are many funny moments, eccentric characters, and off-the-wall circumstances. The baby Sunny's ga-ga comments (which are translated at the bottom of the screen) are often quite hilarious. The only parts that are kinda disturbing are when they imply the deaths of a couple of their relatives, which seems kinda, well, disturbing, given the general light-heartedness of the kid's film. But I prefer that over the typical the-world-is-perfect junk. And what offsets the dark circumstances is the cleverness and bravery of the intelligent children, who time after time find a way to save themselves from whatever Count Olaf is throwing at them.

Reviews for this movie conflict with each other, but one thing everyone agrees on: The sets are stupendous! Forget all the computer-generated hype of the 21st century---it's the real live sets that carry this movie. From Aunt Josephine's rickety house to Count Olaf's scary "abode," everything is just jaw-droppingly, well, cool-looking!

Inevitably, the books are better. But not incredibly better. The problem was that they tried to rush things a little too much, often not putting enough emphasis on things. They also mixed the plot around slightly, if only to offer a better climax at the end. Even so, they changed the clever way the conflict was resolved. Instead, they added a whole mystery thing with spyglasses and fires and whatnot. We can only guess and ponder if these additions have anything to do with the book mysteries, and will be revealed in the last two books, or if they just made it up.

For the most part, Lemony Snicket's movie is a clever, light-hearted realistic tale with a slight shade of dark and morbidness. May not be what your used to, but then you might like a change.

Edmond the Hun