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82
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79
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78
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73
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71
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71
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70
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65
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64
Wanted
64
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63
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61
Incredible Hulk, The
60
Traitor
57
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
55
House Bunny, The
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
Get Smart
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
53
Rocker, The
52
Longshots, The
51
Mamma Mia!
51
Step Brothers
49
Hancock
47
Swing Vote
47
X-Files: I Want to Believe, The
43
Meet Dave
42
Death Race
36
Space Chimps
36
Fly Me to the Moon
35
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
35
Mirrors
34
Happening, The
31
Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The
26
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24
Love Guru, The
19
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15
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15
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

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75
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89
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86
Edge of Heaven, The
86
Up the Yangtze
86
Flight of the Red Balloon, The
85
Momma's Man
85
Alexandra
83
U2 3D
83
Tell No One
82
Frozen River
81
Trouble the Water
80
Encounters at the End of the World
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
80
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79
Visitor, The
78
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
78
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77
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76
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75
Young@Heart
75
Boy A
74
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
74
Mongol
73
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73
Secret, A
72
Priceless
72
Transsiberian
72
I.O.U.S. A
71
To the Limit
71
Girl Cut in Two, A
71
Roman de gare
70
Love Songs
67
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67
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66
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66
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66
American Teen
66
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65
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64
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64
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63
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63
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62
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62
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62
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62
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61
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61
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61
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61
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61
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58
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58
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57
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56
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56
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55
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55
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54
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54
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54
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54
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54
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52
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51
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50
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49
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47
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47
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46
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46
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44
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40
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26
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25
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xx
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xx
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xx
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xx
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xx
Beer for My Horses
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 thats always smart, even if its 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
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