Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
64 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

EMAILPRINTParamount Pictures

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events reviews
62
6.5 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 111 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Comedy  |  Family/Kids  |  Fantasy

Written by: Robert Gordon
Daniel Handler (books)

Directed by: Brad Silberling

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 17, 2004
DVD: April 26, 2005

Running Time: 107 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

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.

What The Critics Said

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.

Read Full Review >
80

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Good movie, great fun.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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

Read Full Review >
78

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Carrey is a bit of a conundrum: He's the best and worst thing about Lemony Snicket.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.''

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Manages to remain witty throughout.

Read Full Review >
75

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A pessimistic chronicle that even optimistic 8-year-olds can love.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
70

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Carrey's relentless showboating is almost its undoing.

Read Full Review >
70

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Successful in kicking off a largely amusing and visually engaging franchise.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
63

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A lavishly mounted blockbuster that has little personality of its own except on a purely visual level.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
60

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

As it ticks by, laboriously, it leaves you feeling that you should be enjoying it more than you are.

Read Full Review >
60

Chicago Reader Hank Sartin

Episodic but entertaining fantasy.

Read Full Review >
60

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Devolves into a repetitive comedy that squanders a hugely talented cast.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
58

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Isn't nearly as cheerily unpleasant as it ought to be.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >
50

Slate David Edelstein

Underwhelming.

Read Full Review >
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.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

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.

Andrew M. gave it a9:
Having not read the books I entered the movie without knowing what it was about. I was immediatly blown away by the production and the wit of the writer. I enjoy Jim Carry and think of him as a genious when it comes to bringing life to characters. Loved the story, loved the characters and really enjoyed the beautiful art production. Have got it out again and again.

Genesis M. gave it a10:
The movie was great. The characters were brave and they understand their situation. They know how to fight.

Daniel H. gave it a1:
It was the single worst book turned into a film I have ever seen. It put me off reading the books for a week!

Sean P. gave it a3:
It was dull and lacking exictment and out of order to the books.

Danielle P. gave it a10:
Iit was realy good you should make a nother movie. I know a lot over people that want you to make a 2nd movie.

Fábio N. gave it a10:
This beauty production it's definily good,isn't a amazing adaptation but still diserve our atention.

Kakalina L. gave it a9:
I I only like this movie because of all the little funny things in it. It really cracks me up sometimes!

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use