Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

I just got back from seeing Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I dug it. I had a good time. I laughed out loud. And I loved looking at it. The production design was unreal. It appears to be set in some kind of amalgamation of modern and old world; Needless to say it's an incredible stylized world, and I love really stylized worlds (two of my favourite films for production design are Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and Moulin Rouge! In fact, Lemony Snicket has the same PD as Sleepy Hollow. The guy does good work). Also, the storyline was appropriately dark, yet bizzare and humourous. That is, if you like dark humour, but still childlike humour. I don't know how to describe it. There is some definitely creepy (and not "horror movie" creepy, but "icky" creepy) parts to the movie, like when Count Olaf tries to force Violet to marry him. That's creepy!

A word on Count Olaf: he is great! A truly evil villian, but still hilarious. I guess this is where I admit that I like Jim Carrey. I"m a big fan. Even when the rest of the movie is mediocre I enjoy watching him. His Count Olaf is so over the top. A lot of the reviews have criticized him for this, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching Carrey ham it up. I laughed out loud numerous times at his ridiculousness. I could watch an entire movie of Jim Carrey doing weird characters. So much fun. There are several performances by other actors that are quite fun, including Billy Connelly, Meryl Streep, Timothy Spall and even Luis Guzman in a small role. Also, there is a small cameo by someone I won't mention, but I will say it's the second time this year that he's played a theatre financier.

I haven't read any of the book series, but the film made me want to. I saw them at McNally, and they look short. I might pick them up after Christmas and give them a whirl. If they are anything like the narration and quirkiness of the film, I'm sure I'll enjoy them. Anyone else familiar with the books might not have liked the film as much as I did, but all in all it was one of the most fun times I had at the theatre in a while.