(Credit: www.dvdsoon.com)
Director:
Brad Silberling
Cast:
Jim Carrey……….Count Olaf
Emily Browning……….Violet Baudelaire
Liam Aiken……….Klaus Baudelaire
Meryl Streep……….Aunt Josephine
Jude Law……….Lemony Snicket
Kara and Shelby Hoffman……….Sunny
Timothy Spall……….Mr. Poe
Catherine O’Hara……….Justice Strauss
Billy Connolly……….Uncle Monty
Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures present Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Written by Robert Gordon. Based on the books: The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room and The Wide Window by Daniel Handler. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated PG (for thematic elements, scary situations and brief language).
The movie:
Lemony Snicket isn’t ordinary children’s fare. When the trailer was making the rounds on the Internet and in theaters, I thought it was a bad knockoff of the Harry Potter series. Little did I know the movie was based on a series of unfortunate events – three, in fact.
The movie starts off happy-go-lucky with a little elf prancing around a forest. Subsequently, the story spirals out of control. Sunny dispositions turn bleak. Good humor turns dark. And it’s absolutely brilliant.
Not only does Lemony Snicket write the books, he has enough gumption to take time out of his busy schedule to act in the film. OK, not really. Jude Law is his stunt double for the big screen adaptation. For the entire feature he is in shadow, bent over an old typewriter – yes, there was a time when typewriters were all the rage – typing the dreadful story of the three Baudelaire children who become orphans the day they hear their parents died in a house fire.
The children do not grieve, which is strange; they take the life-altering news from Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall) the family’s dimwitted banker rather well. We are led to believe there wasn’t a real closeness between the parents and children. Violet (Emily Browning) the oldest Baudelaire creates inventions to pass to time, keeping her mind busy when she should be grieving, instead. Klaus (Liam Aiken) the dreaded middle child spends his time reading books on numerous topics: trains, reptiles, etc. But don’t call him a bookworm. This kid’s got moxie. And then there’s the infant Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman). Her special skill is her firm bite. She may only have two teeth but she bites so hard she can hang from the edge of a table in mid-air with ease.
Individually, their powers are intriguing. When combined, however, they present a problem to Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), the Baudelaire orphans closest relative; he’s a fourth cousin three times removed. Or, is it a third cousin four times removed? Mr. Poe is so clueless with details. And to think, this stout man is a banker.
Count Olaf takes the Baudelaire orphans into his Gothic mansion with the intention of killing them and absconding with the family fortune. He’s devious actions aren’t so subtle. Olaf parks his black Imperial automobile, with a working reel-to-reel machine, on a train crossing with the kids locked inside. If only Olaf had an ACME catalog. You’d be surprised how much damage a falling piano or anvil can do.
Narrowly escaping death by train the Baudelaire orphans go to live with Uncle Monty Montgomery (Billy Connolly), a herpetologist who shares his home with snakes, a tortoise and other reptilian varieties. The day of the children’s arrival all four were to leave immediately for Peru. But alas, Count Olaf shows up before they can get the bags out the door. This time he is disguised as an Italian man named Stephano. Right off the bat the children know the man is Olaf; they can see past the bad makeup job and horrible accent.
Jim Carrey doesn’t sugarcoat his performance as Count Olaf. He winks at the camera, pandering to the viewing audience. Sure, it may be over-the-top or very tongue-in-cheek, but that’s the tone the Lemony Snicket books strive for. Besides, Olaf’s occupation is that of a bad theater actor. So his performance isn’t at all surprising.
Somehow the children are able to flee this unfortunate event, and the clutches of the Count, and ultimately arrive at yet another promising foster home; this time the residence is Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep). Her Victorian home is teetering on supports far above a rocky coast and rough seas. Funny that Josephine’s house is so high up. She makes it perfectly clear that she has a phobia for doorknobs and stovetops; but no fear of heights, how odd.
Carrey may get all the buzz in this feature but it is infant Sunny who gets the most laughs. And she gets her laughs through the use of subtitles, since Sunny speaks her own gurgling version of English. Never thought I’d see twins and a stunt baby upstage the extroverted antics of Carrey.
Some may find the subject manner to be a bit glum. The same goes for many of the Unfortunate Events. That may be, but the dark humored stories are a nice change of pace from typical kid’s movies. The adults in Lemony Snicket appear to be either clueless or dispensers of evil, which many kids can attest to.
Director Brad Silberling (Moonlight Mile) with production designer Rick Heinrichs (of Sleepy Hollow fame) and hundreds of crewmembers have created some of the most sprawling and eerie settings ever. The construction of Count Olaf’s mansion alone took up two stages in the Paramount Pictures lot. Almost everything in the film is artificial. Lot of planning and construction went into the making of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, but it was well worth it.
Not completely sold, try reading the back of the DVD case. The message Lemony Snicket has for the viewer will intrigue you. “If you enjoy movies filled with singing rabbits, exploding spaceships, or cheerleaders, you are holding the wrong DVD entirely…(this movie) includes a suspicious fire, delicious pasta, Jim Carrey, poorly behaved leeches, an incredibly deadly viper, Meryl Streep, and the voice of an imposter named Jude Law” – I guess Russell Crowe wasn’t available to lend his presence. How can you not want to see this movie after a message like that?
Score: 7.5/10
THE DVD
VIDEO: How does it look?
I really like how the video looks. If you have a movie with such extravagant sets you should expect a decent transfer, right? The colors are rich but the blacks are a little muted in some scenes, though. I was expecting the faces to be washed-out due to the amount of dark colors. But cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki uses the lighting of each set to great effect. Also, the transfer didn’t appear to have any spots during playback. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events has its original widescreen presentation (1.85:1) and it is enhanced for 16 x 9 televisions.
Score: 9/10
AUDIO: How does it sound?
With the amount of special features on the first disc we only get a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack. It works for the most part, but there were times I was grabbing my remote to hear what Count Olaf was saying. Some of his characters speak in a low raspy voice. Despite that problem, the 5.1 audio does justice to Thomas Newman’s creepy score. In addition to English 5.1, the DVD comes with French 5.1 and Spanish 5.1 capabilities.
Score: 8/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: More than three-and-a-half hours worth of behind-the-scenes material!!!!
That is not a typo. In fact, the first disc has a little more than 54 minutes worth of featurettes, deleted scenes, and outtakes.
We begin with Bad Beginnings, a three-section featurette on makeup, casting and screen tests. The first part is Building a Bad Actor (12:45). This extra shows Jim Carrey getting not-so prim in the makeup room. It’s a long process so Carrey spends the time cracking jokes. The makeup artist is the only one not laughing; she’s a professional. The three-minute Making the Baudelaire Children Miserable shows how casting went about for the roles of Violet, Klaus and Sunny. For Interactive Olaf, highlights from Carrey’s extensive makeup and wardrobe tests are available in a four-way split screen: Count Olaf wardrobe looks 1 & 2; Olaf 2A; Captain Sham; and Stephano. You have the option of viewing the audio from each test individually.
Alarming Audio Commentaries are up next. The first commentary is from director Brad Silberling. He isn’t too technical with his commentary. He left documentarian David Prior to fill the viewers in. What he does do, though, is recount stories from the set. Stories involving the twins who played Sunny were interesting. Shelby was pretty much done with the production after she yelled at seeing the viper in the cage. Kara did pretty much all the work. That is, unless a CGI rendered Sunny took her place.
The next commentary with Brad Silberling and the Real Lemony Snicket is amusing. Snicket likes how the movie starts off with the little elf but becomes disparaged once the feature film turns its attention to Count Olaf. I can’t even recount how many times he says, “OH NO!” with that nasally voice of his.
Under the Orphaned Scenes title there are two extras: Dismal Deletions and Obnoxious Outtakes. Most of the deletions and outtakes are pretty forgettable. There was one outtake that was mildly entertaining. It involves a theater critic (Dustin Hoffman) and a cop (Cedric the Entertainer). In the scene Hoffman asks Cedric if after the play he wanted to “get some Chinese.” Cedric responds, “Yeah. Let’s get ’em.”
Completing the extras for the first disc are previews for Madagascar, The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, Rugrats – Tales From the Crib: Snow White The Movie, and a soundtrack promo for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
On Disc 2 there are even more extensive documentaries and featurettes on the making of the film. Each one is written, produced and directed by David Prior. Many may remember him through his DVD special feature collaborations with the likes of David Fincher (Fight Club) and Guillermo Del Toro (Blade II).
A Terrible Tragedy: Alarming Evidence From the Making Of the Film consists of five different features.
A Woeful World is 54 minutes behind the making of the sets used in the movie. The art department led by production designer Rick Hendricks designed and constructed 47 different sets. Almost everything in Count Olaf’s house was custom made. And if extra credit were given to attention to detail, give it to the guy in charge of making the graveyard markers. Over 100 tombstones were custom made for the graveyard set. More did you know: 1500 space lights were used to create daylight for the setting.
For Costumes and Other Suspicious Disguises (16:36), costume designer Colleen Atwood talks about how she likes to create costumes that can fit in any period. Most of the designs are turn of the century costumes. Mr. Poe is a classic Edwardian type of guy. Vertical stripes help sell the look of Count Olaf as a “lean meanie.”
Every wanted to be like MacGuyver? Watch Violet’s Functional Designs (10:38) to see how some of her inventions were made. I’ll tell you this much. It took more than a rubber band and a matchbox.
Be not afraid when you view Caution! Incredibly Deadly Vipers. Animal coordinator Jules Sylvester shows you the ropes in this eight-minute extra. Snakes and vipers and other reptiles were transported very carefully to and from the set each day in plastic containers. One funny incident involves Billy Connelly and the sensuous snake he so nonchalantly drapes around his neck. Little does he know the snake is actually a male.
The last feature in this segment features composer Thomas Newman explaining The Sad Score of the film. Newman runs a pretty lose ship, for the most part. The orchestra helps with the score, throwing in suggestions and experimenting, to help Newman create the best film music possible.
The next two features are two areas in filmmaking that don’t get too much attention: sound effects recording and sound effects editing. In Volume. Frequency. Decibels. The Unsound Sound Designer, a group of sound effects technicians have the cool task of destroying a house. With days away from being torn down, the crew got permission to record breaking glass, wood creaks and the sound of a tree falling down on the house. It took more effort in destroying the house than they had expected. And when nightfall came, the house was still standing. But the crew got the sounds they needed for the scenes inside Aunt Josephine’s creaking house.
For the You Probably Shouldn’t Listen to These segment, there are two playable options. In Tree, Meet House, you can listen to the seven microphones used as the tree fell on the house. You can listen to each one individually or in an audio mixture of all seven. The Terrible Train feature illustrates the layers of sound effects created for the train sequence. There is a sampling from eight pre-dubs. You can listen to all of them together by the selecting the PLAY MIX button.
Sinister Special Effects consists of four different special effects extras.
The first two featurettes (An Alarming Conspiracy Involving Sunny and An Even More Alarming Conspiracy Involving Sunny) shed light the make-believe Sunny used while filming. There was an animatronics Sunny doll used in the Hurricane sequence at Aunt Josephine’s. She was also in the cage high up in the air for one scene. The times when we see Sunny interacting with a snake, she’s really an Industrial Lights and Magic (ILM) special effect.
The Terrible Fire is a five-minute piece on a various shots that were superimposed together to create a wraparound shot of the Baudelaire children seeing their house go from pristine to up in smoke.
The last special effects feature deals with Trains, Leeches, & Hurricanes. A better title would have been: “Why Lemony Snicket Loves Blue Screens.” As the title suggests, CGI effects for the speeding train, man-eating leeches and the hurricane sequence are discussed.
Rounding out the extras on the second discs are Gruesome Galleries with Shadowy Stills, A Woeful World, and Costumes and Other Suspicious Disguises.
Whew!! Talk about a loaded two-disc set. It has everything you could possibly want and then some. I’m kind of glad they didn’t try to include any interactive games or kid-inspired features. The best feature of course is the 54 minutes spent on the creation (and then destruction) of the wonderful world of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Score: 8.5/10
