Again, not much to add to an old first-viewing review. Jim Carrey’s still just a little too annoying. I think the problem is that this movie feels sort of timeless – there’s not a great deal of hinting about when it’s supposedly “set” aside from the period-like costumes. Jim Carrey kind of breaks this sense of timelessness with some of his improvs, and it’s really kind of annoying that they were kept in considering he must’ve had hundreds of alternatives. Anachronism is cool, it’s worked for me many times before, but here, even though the actual timezone of the movie isn’t known, it’s really too jarring for me. The ending of this movie is beautiful. I still haven’t read the Lemony Snicket books, though I intend to … I have a hunch they try to avoid the kind of emotional stuff director Brad Silberling brings out in the movie, especially towards the end, but I’m so glad he did it. Oh and I can’t believe I never even mentioned her in the first review, but Emily Browning is absolutely beautiful. So that’s a definite 3 movie Violets in the past year that I have gone absolutely ga-ga over

8th March 2005:

I haven’t read any of the Lemony Snicket books, but being a fan of both Jim Carrey and director Brad Silberling (who made one of my all-time favourites, Casper), I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie. I wasn’t disappointed. This is yet another one to put on the list of “movies my kids should see”.

I have to admit, this is possibly the first movie where Jim Carrey has actually almost annoyed me. He lets his old rubber-faced antics creep in when it’s really unnecessary, often really distracting from the mostly sober, gothic, cynical mood of the movie. Granted, on the children’s side as we are, we’re meant to see him as a bit of a tw*t… but I don’t know, just personally, it was the only slightly bad thing of the movie for me. The kids, Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, and Jude Law’s narration fit in perfectly to the story and world the filmmakers have realised.

My favourite thing of the movie was how Brad Silberling brings out the sad and lonely emotional stuff of the story, just as he did in Casper. That’s not to say the movie’s all misery and darkness. There’s plenty of comedy, from the baby’s subtitles to Count Olaf’s final punishment (having to go through all the misfortune he’s brought upon others, before going to jail). The sound and visual effects, too, deserve major kudos.

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