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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Paramount Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG for thematic elements, scary situations and brief language
Starring
Jim Carrey,
Meryl Streep,
Jude Law,
Emily Browning,
Liam Aiken,
Kara Hoffman,
Shelby Hoffman, Timothy Spall,
and
Billy Connolly
Daniel Handler's popular children's book series about the misadventures of the Baudelaire orphans comes to the big screen.
| GENRE(S): |
Adventure
|
Comedy
|
Family/Kids
|
Fantasy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Robert Gordon
Daniel Handler (books)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Brad Silberling
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 26, 2005
Video: April 26, 2005
Theatrical: December 17, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
107 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Chicago Tribune
Robert K. Elder
Exceptionally clever, hilariously gloomy and bitingly subversive.
80
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Good movie, great fun.
80
Empire
Caroline Westbrook
Silberling does a good job of introducing Snicket to the big screen in an impressive adaptation that’s always smart, even if it’s rarely spectacular.
80
Newsweek
Sean Smith
Pretty charming. Audiences may like it more than critics, but everyone should agree it's one of the most wickedly stylish movies of the year.
80
Washington Post
Jennifer Frey
A gem of a movie, all its adversity and wickedness a backdrop for a story about the remarkable resilience of children
78
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
Carrey is a bit of a conundrum: He's the best and worst thing about Lemony Snicket.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The film's no masterpiece, but at least you're in the hands of people who know what they're doing.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
Much credit for this delightfully morose children's film must go to director Brad Silberling's careful orchestration. Please note, in the vocabulary-building spirit of the Snicket books, that the word "orchestration'' here means "coaxing good performances out of child actors and keeping Jim Carrey in check.''
75
Premiere
Peter Debruge
An astounding achievement in production design, an original creation so completely in tune with the books' macabre sensibilities that even the movie's (arguably) happy ending can't diminish its satisfying sense of schadenfreude.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
A work of wonderfully sinister fantasy. Director Brad Silberling is always mindful of his kiddie audience -- the movie is never even remotely scary.
75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Manages to remain witty throughout.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
A pessimistic chronicle that even optimistic 8-year-olds can love.
70
Dallas Observer
Luke Y. Thompson
Just might be Jim Carrey's finest screen role...The rest of the movie, however, isn't quite up to Carrey's level.
70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
At its best, A Series Of Unfortunate Events is the stuff nightmares are made of, a sick joke of a film that realizes the best children's entertainment doesn't hide from the bleaker side of life, but plunges into the void and respects kids enough to assume they can handle it.
70
Variety
Scott Foundas
Snicket's macabre tale of three newly orphaned siblings has been lavishly visualized. But for all its elaborate splendor, production pic lacks the feeling and imagination that have distinguished the best recent kidpics.
70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Carrey's relentless showboating is almost its undoing.
70
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
Successful in kicking off a largely amusing and visually engaging franchise.
70
Village Voice
Michael Atkinson
In time, Carrey's monkeyshines, Jude Law's silhouetted reappearances as Snicket, and the inevitable descent of Beverly Hills pathos blunt the movie's fastidious dark-carnival humor.
63
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A lavishly mounted blockbuster that has little personality of its own except on a purely visual level.
63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
A visually arresting and entertaining romp, but it lacks some of the sardonic humor of the popular children's books on which the movie is based.
63
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
A series of unfortunate events occurred during the making of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and they all had to do with Jim Carrey.
63
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There is no one in the movie to provide a reasonable reaction to anything; the adults are all demented, evil, or, in the case of Mr. Poe, stunningly lacking in perception, and the kids are plucky enough, but rather dazed by their misfortunes.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Though rich in visual style, the movie is unbalanced in performances and script, ranging, from scene to scene, from go-for-baroque grandeur to strident excess.
63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
If you wanted this "Snicket" movie (and the presumed flood of sequels) to be faithful to the novels, you have come to the wrong franchise.
60
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
As it ticks by, laboriously, it leaves you feeling that you should be enjoying it more than you are.
60
Chicago Reader
Hank Sartin
Episodic but entertaining fantasy.
60
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Devolves into a repetitive comedy that squanders a hugely talented cast.
60
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
What the movie lacks, alarmingly, is a shriveled black heart, or a big, red tell-tale one pulsing beneath the floorboards -- anything, really, that might infuse it with the sense of true dread that keeps kids coming back for second, third and 11th helpings of the willies.
60
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Mr. Silberling has made a movie that's far rougher in texture and tone than Mr. Handler's books, but while he doesn't have the author's sense of whimsy (or irony) he manages to construct a pleasantly watchable entertainment in all the spaces in the story not laid siege to by Mr. Carrey.
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
I walked out of it feeling much the same way I did after "The Cat in the Hat" and "The Polar Express" -- jarred by its excess, undernourished by its lack of heart and bored by its lack of originality.
58
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Isn't nearly as cheerily unpleasant as it ought to be.
58
Portland Oregonian
M. E. Russell
Ends up being one of those heartbreaking movies that gets off to a promising start but never quite creaks to life, despite everyone's obvious best efforts.
50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
In Robert Gordon's script, Handler's hilariously literate bouts of psychological torture develop no consistent tone, voice or momentum.
50
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Silberling and writer Robert Gordon have made the fatal error of trying to jolly up the novels, which are often funny but never, ever cute.
50
Slate
David Edelstein
Underwhelming.
40
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
Jim Carrey is the prime offender here. He's such an unseemly showoff that the movie keeps stopping in its tracks.
25
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
I hate to sound per-Snickety, but this lemon of a movie is a sadly unfortunate event.
 The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 111 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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