Lemony Snicket's

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (Director: Brad Silberling)

LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is the Oscar winner for Best Makeup (Valli O'Reilly, Bill Corso)

Silberling earned his stripes in mostly television, and a lot of Steven Bochco shows as it turns out. His films include City of Angels and Moonlight Mile.

This is not a bad film but the story is just a tad repetitive. Based on the first three of the "Unfortunate Events" books: "The Bad Beginning," "The Reptile Room," and "The Wide Window," all of the plot revolves around Baudelaire orphans Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and baby Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) who have just lost their parents in a fire and are being sent to be taken care of by Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). Olaf is searching for a way to land the rights to the Baudelaire fortune, and after he is considered unfit for guardian duties, the care of the orphans becomes the responsibility of others, who get offed by Olaf one-by-one.

So that's how the plot goes throughout the film. New guardian, something happens, next guardian. What makes the film enjoyable comes out of the various skills of the children getting out of certain jams. Violet is an inventor, Klaus is a bookworm with tons of knowledge, and Sunny can bite things and is a little mischief-maker. Another reason is Jim Carrey, who is perfect for the scheming Olaf, a character who is an actor and fits into different roles as the story changes--but no matter how much he makes himself up, he can't hide his oily, evil ways from the children.

Other fine actors fill key roles: Billy Connolly plays Uncle Monty, the reptile-obsessed guardian, and Meryl Streep plays Aunt Josephine, the grammar-obsessed guardian. There's also cameos from Catherine O'Hara, Luis Guzman, and Dustin Hoffman, plus Lemony Snicket himself, the narrator of the story, is played by Jude Law (in what is his 5th of 6 films this fall, The Aviator being the last). Everyone is good, but perhaps the acting prize goes to Browning and Aiken, as they have to basically carry the film, and they're only 16 and 14, respectively, and usually when you have kids anchoring a film there's a lot of self-awareness and overacting. Not here.

It's a fine family film, but it's certainly not of the caliber of The Incredibles. One more mention should go to frequent Tim Burton collaborator Rick Heinrichs, who did the production design, and Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. Both worked on Burton's Sleepy Hollow, and it shows throughout this film.