Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Exceptionally clever, hilariously gloomy and bitingly subversive.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Good movie, great fun.

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.

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.

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

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

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

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.

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.''

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.

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Manages to remain witty throughout.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

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

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.

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.

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Carrey's relentless showboating is almost its undoing.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

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

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.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

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

Chicago Reader Hank Sartin

Episodic but entertaining fantasy.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

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

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.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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

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.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

In Robert Gordon's script, Handler's hilariously literate bouts of psychological torture develop no consistent tone, voice or momentum.

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.

Slate David Edelstein

Underwhelming.

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.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

I hate to sound per-Snickety, but this lemon of a movie is a sadly unfortunate event.