Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2577 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-05-27
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Box set, Dubbed, PAL, Special Edition, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Hungarian
• Dubbed in: Hungarian
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
If you spliced Charles Addams, Dr. Seuss, Charles Dickens, Edward Gorey, and Roald Dahl into a Tim Burtonesque landscape, you'd surely come up with something like Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Many critics (in mostly mixed reviews) wondered why Burton didn't direct this comically morbid adaptation of the first three books in the popular series by Daniel Handler (a.k.a. "Lemony Snicket," played here by Jude Law and seen only in silhouette) instead of TV and Casper veteran Brad Silberling, but there's still plenty to recommend the playfully bleak scenario, in which three resourceful orphans thwart their wicked, maliciously greedy relative Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), who subjects them to... well, a series of unfortunate events. Along the way they encounter a herpetologist uncle (Billy Connolly), an anxious aunt (Meryl Streep) who's afraid of everything, and a variety of fantastical hazards and mysterious clues, some of which remain unresolved. Given endless wonders of art direction, costume design, and cinematography, Silberling's direction is surprisingly uninspired (in other words, the books are better), but when you add a throwaway cameo by Dustin Hoffman, Law's amusing narration, and Carrey's over-the-top antics, the first Lemony movie suggests a promising franchise in the making. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Special Features
4 HOURS OF BONUS FEATURES

A Woeful World - - This documentary reveals how the filmmakers created the world of Lemony Snicket.

Costumes and Other Suspicious Disguises - - Creating the look for main characters Olaf, Aunt Josephine, Uncle Monty and the Baudelaire children.

Violet’s Functional Designs - - A peek at the technical geniuses behind some of Violet’s most complex inventions.

CAUTION! Incredibly Deadly Vipers - - Where did all those vipers, pythons and critters come from?

Trains, Leeces and Hurricanes - - A detailed look at the film’s CGI scenes

The Sad Score - - Scoring the film with Brad Silberling and Thomas Newman

The Unsound Sound Designer - - This featurette also includes an interactive sound segment with the Terrible Train and Aunt Josephine’s house destruction

The Terrible Fire - - Revealed

An Alarming Conspiracy Involving Sunny - - A detailed look at the animatronic Sunny and her creation at ILM

An Even More Alarming Conspiracy Involving Sunny - - More on how the animatronic Sunny Doll was created with Kevin Yagher

Gruesome Galleries - - 75 stills from the film

- 3 Easter Eggs

Synopsis
Directed by Brad Siberling, LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS follows the Baudelaire orphans--Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and baby Sunny (played by twins Kara and Shelby Hoffman)--as they are followed by the wicked Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). A distant relative and an awful actor, Olaf is determined to claim the fortune willed to Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, whose parents died in a mysterious fire. Enigmatic author Lemony Snicket (Jude Law) recounts the adventures of the three children as they change hands from the conniving Olaf to the reptile-loving Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly) to Aunt Josephine (Meryl Steep), who lives in fear of just about everything. An adaptation that condenses the first three books in the series--THE BAD BEGINNING, THE REPTILE ROOM, and THE WIDE WINDOW--into one instalment, the film captures the darkly humorous tone of the popular children's novels by Lemony Snicket (AKA Daniel Handler). Carrey clearly has fun with his intentionally over-the-top role as the villain, while the young actors embody their resourceful characters wonderfully. The true star of the film, however, may be the production design of Rick Heinrichs (SLEEPY HOLLOW), which creates a visually stunning world filled with gothic mansions and ramshackle houses. By keeping the heart of the eccentric books intact, A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS proves to be an usually inventive and quirky Hollywood film.

Customer Reviews

A very well spent couple of hours
I went to see this film at the cinema, whilst trying to de-stress myself before a huge coursework hand it... and it worked miracles! This is all that is great about children's films, you are drawn instantly into a fantasy world where the impossible is possible, and the hilarious likely. There are a series of fab cameos to keep you entertained, and Jim Carrey certainly seems to have found his niche here too, able to make you laugh, shudder or scream in an instant.

Unlike the Enid Blyton style of story telling, which I remember so dispassionately from my childhood... with Lemony Snicket, you really can't be sure that there will be a happy ending, which is refreshing, especially in a children's film.

From start to finish, this is hilarious, engaging, and by far the best form of stress relief I have encountered in a long time. Enjoy!

Well made but too cramped
I think the look and style of this film is excellent, and the special effects are superb, and they warrant the two stars - but it loses three due to a few horrible mistakes. The first is that the producers allowed it to become the Jim Carey Show and he's so over the top that the sinister subtleties and bizarre cunning of the books are all lost. Secondly, there is just too much crammed in this film. What used to occupy a major part of a book becomes just a ten minute diversion or less, and situations come and go as quickly as certain characters - all of which overplay there parts as if the Americans have discovered panto. Billy Connolly was good, the kids were very well cast, but the remainder are either under used or over used.
This is well made enough to justify watching a couple of times, but if you love the books I would say stay away. Too much has been missed out in order to squeeze a few books into one film. It should be one film, one book! Or two at a push.

Meryl Streep is Brilliant
I certainly expected the film to be much darker than it turned out to be - with its somewhat hopeful ending. That is the appeal of the books, after all, the overwhelming dreariness of the Baudelaire's cyclic circumstances.

The emphasis in this film seemed to be on the art - the costumes, sets, lighting, FX, properties, even the creative and amusing end credits (if you get the opportunity, sit through them). Visually it was a very strong film, a fantastic film to feast one's eyes upon.

Furthermore I enjoyed all the character parts, especially Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine, and of course, Jim Carrey as the heinous and exceedingly repugnant (dare I type his name???) Count Olaf. I don't think the role of THE villain in Daniel Handler's tales could have been more perfectly cast. Jim Carrey IS Brett Helquist's illustration and Handler's monster come to life. Whenever there were shots of Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) with his face in close proximity to Violet, or Aunt Josephine, or anyone else, I kept thinking to myself "How can they stand being that close to him? How can they stand the foul odor that must be exuding from his sinister mouth?" Maybe I am too into these books...