So imagine what pain and sorrow must feel like to such a vulnerable, innocent spirit. Conjure up in your mind the converse of all the birthday bliss, Christmas cheer and interpersonal presence, and see if you can't sense how HORRIBLE the world would appear to a wounded, or abandoned child. Life may be a series of grays, but extremes do match off in exact blacks and whites. So if pleasure is like the best bowl of ice cream you've ever had, sadness must be the sickening slime oozing off the side of some rotting fish. This is how kids see the universe of misery, a place so gloomy and dark that the light from love gets instantly dispersed and destroyed. It is a territory of realities and regrets. It is a most regrettable of realms. Sad to say, it is also the world of the Baudelaires, three children who know a great deal about the drastic boundaries of delight and depression. Theirs is a destiny darkened by the troubled waters they are slowly sinking into. Theirs is the sad saga of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The DVD:
Violet, Klauss and Sunny Baudelaire are three very special and gifted children. The eldest, 14 year old Violet, is an amazing inventor, able to whip up contraptions that defy logical and the laws of physics. Klauss, who is 12 going on 13, is a voracious reader, with the uncanny ability to remember everything in every book he's perused. And infant Sunny is the most successful biter on the planet. There is nothing she can't gnaw through. For this talented trio, life is an endless series of discoveries and adventures. Sadly, when their parents die in a mysterious fire, their world becomes a nasty succession of regrets. Left as orphans in the charge of Mr. Poe, a banker who is also executor of the Baudelaire estate, the children are eventually placed with a distant relative, the prickly thespian Count Olaf. Living in what appears to be a domestic nightmare, Olaf only wants guardianship so he can inherit the massive family fortune. He makes his new wards slave away for his and his horrible actor friends' amusement.

When Olaf's plan for an inopportune accident goes awry, the Baudelaires are removed from his care and sent off to live with other, more merciful relatives. There is Uncle Monty, the reptile expert who lives the kind of audacious life the kids crave. When another bit of ill-fortune befalls him, the children are then sent to live with Aunt Josephine, a whacked out widow who has a phobic fear of...well, everything. But Olaf will not be stopped. He wants that money, and will do anything to get it, even deeds far too cruel to mention here. Indeed, when it comes to the Baudelaire clan and their incredibly strange life, it does appear as if they are living through a series of unfortunate events.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a good movie, nay, a VERY good movie. Unfortunately, it is not a great movie. Not by the farthest stretches of the vast amount of imagination the narrative relies on to sell its story. Like a beautiful piece of music that fails to transcend its gorgeous notation, or a painting that perfectly captures a lovely landscape, but otherwise falls short of moving us, this is a sensational style over substance experience that should make fans of the books upon which it is based weep with joy. However, it just doesn't leap off the screen as something timeless or classic. What should be wondrous is merely magical, what should zing with a kind of creative sparkle only formulates its desperately attractive pictures and then passes off into shadows. This is a fantasy that channels the decidedly darker side of the spectrum, but forgets that part of the fun of escaping into the gloom is discovering the succulent silver lining within, and overindulging in both.

In the capable hands of journeyman director Brad Silberling (Casper, City of Angels), the world created by writer Daniel Handler (who applies the fruity nom de plume of the title) is rendered with almost painstaking detail. Like the cartoons of Edward Gorey or Gahan Wilson come to life, Silberling is a filmmaker obsessed with textures and tone. He strives to create a confounding atmosphere, one where we aren't sure which era we are in, and what technological tenets are available. Part parallel universe where both Rube Goldberg and Charles Addams would feel comfortable, part planet where nothing makes a damn lick of cinematic sense, A Series of Unfortunate Events can be a very off-putting experience. It makes one wonder what the film would play like had someone with a clearer, artistic vision been behind the lens, not to mention possessing the skill to fully realize such a completely insular world. Just thinking of this backdrop, this story and these characters in the hands of Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, or, dare it be said, the Coen Brothers, sends shivers up and down one's spine.

But we are given Silberling, and it has to be said that he gives this film his best, most baroque shot. There is no doubt that A Series of Unfortunate Events is a scrupulously, heartbreakingly handsome movie to look at. A true visual feast, this cornucopia of remarkable imagery recalls Currier and Ives, the Edwardian and Victorian periods of industrialized London with just a dash of Gothic gaucheness to certify the mixture of menace and the morose. Like rare curdled canvases come to life, in combination with many modes of modern science, the combination is both mesmerizing and decidedly distant. We recognize the sets and the settings, but since they are an amalgamation of times, places and exact elements, we experience a kind of decadent detachment. Something just doesn't seem right about the realm Silberling realized. There is a catawampus, misaligned mannerism to everything and everyone. This may be part of the Snicket plan, to keep us guessing right up until the next revelation as to how the Baudelaire children will survive their latest encounter with the regrettable. But it also may indicate something a little more troubling, from a pure motion picture standpoint.

The first indication that things will be a bit off kilter is in the weird cross-cultural concept of the casting. Again, we are aware that this is a merger of many incongruous parts. But some square pegs just don't sit well at all in the round holes A Series of Unfortunate Events is drilling into its wormwood. Consider the voice of Mr. Snicket himself, our narrator. Provided by the prim and proper Jude Law, we get a nice, natty delivery full of deliciously precise British pomp. Equally perfect for the particular role of befuddled bank man Mr. Poe is Mike Leigh regular Timothy Spall, who adds his own bowler hat and school tie twist on the confused English executive. But then the children arrive onscreen, and instead of Jane and Michael Banks, we get a couple of ordinary sounding American tykes (though Emily Browning, as Violet, is as Australian as they come). Even up against Jim Carrey's clever creation of Count Olaf, there blank, Western bleat just can't stand up. True, Olaf is an actor so mannered that he could make a simple greeting into a hambone exercise, but these flat, unaffected kids sound suspect.

The issue can be shown more clearly in the cases of Justice Strauss – played by Catherine O'Hara, and loopy Aunt Josephine, rendered with ridiculous richness by Meryl Streep. Both use a plain, American accent. Both are playing to the material, not against or in spite of it. Yet O'Hara sounds a tad out of place, as if she's not really a part of the Snicket scenario. But Streep disappears into Josephine's hyped up phobia feeling, giving each and every line reading the proper level of local color. Indeed, this may be the reason why the children and the Justice seem so out of place in A Series of Unfortunate Events. The rest of the cast, including Billy Connelly as Uncle Monty and Cedric the Entertainer (who, frankly, should stand out most of all) appear perfectly at home. They are part of the fabric of what is going on, incorporated seamlessly into the mixed up menagerie. But for some strange reason, our leads become lost, unable to fully fall into, or fuse effortlessly, into the crackpot realm surrounding them.

After his far less showy, but still as substantial, turn as Joel Barish in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it is good to see Carrey back in controlled chaos mode again. He is, without a doubt, the center shining star of A Series of Unfortunate Events. He's a supernova, a terrifying treat as the angular avuncular Count. He is a direct reflection of this crazy kingdom created by Silberling and Handler, a surprise a minute wolf hiding out in a rather shabby sheep's tight fitting garb. Carrey is so stellar in fact, disappearing into his own happy planet of peculiarities and tics that he threatens to constantly pull us out of Silberling's film and into a creation all his own. Indeed, the performance is so detailed, so ripe with rivulets of insinuation and intrigue that it starts us asking questions about Olaf in general, inquiries that A Series of Unfortunate Events does not want to respond to. The filmmakers are hoping Olaf comes across as the sensational serviceable villain the story mandates. But in Carrey's hands, he is much more than that. He is Grinchier here than he ever was in Ron Howard's Seuss sluice, as classically cruel as a Dickens character, while keeping his own post-ironic sense of humor.

Carrey's Count does lead us to the other rather obtuse concept of the film, one based solely on something you'd think Lemony Snicket would be an expert at. Storytelling is the crux of all moviemaking, the axis upon which all other elements revolve and rely. In the case of the Snicket series, Silberling and screenwriter Robert Gordon (responsible for Galaxy Quest and Men in Black II) have decided to adapt parts of the first three books (The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window) and while they are not the most hefty of tomes to tackle, each ones does seem to get short shrift here. Instead of languishing in the luxury of one specific adventure, or allowing each facet of this fanciful road movie to gently glide into the next, the creative team wants to cram everything together, to bring a kind of circular shape and closed pattern to what is ostensibly a series of events (thus the title). Instead of hammering the movie into some manner of recognizable mainstream shape, Silberling should have warped the narrative, making it fit his demented designs, not the other way around.

The result is something that feels whole, but slightly hollow, as if we are only seeing clips of each escapade, instead of fully enjoying each one's lavish lunacy. Uncle Monty's world of reptiles deserves better than the few minutes of screen time it earns. And the payoff planned for Aunt Josephine's home when a hurricane hits (in which all of her worst, most manic fears eventually materialize) doesn't quite come together. Indeed, there are moments all through A Series of Unfortunate Events where you wonder why Silberling, or the cast, are spending so much time on or within them. A perfect example is Violet's catchphrase "there's always something". It is supposed to symbolize optimism in the face of adversity, and Klauss later channels it when trying to thwart Olaf's final plan. But since we have only heard the phrase once, and in passing, the resonance the film hopes for vanishes (indeed, additional times when Violet utters the phrase were removed and can be found in the deleted scenes/making-of material). It's almost as if Silberling was hoping to get through his daunting entertainment task by preaching to the core audience already familiar with the books. He applies a kind of cinematic shorthand to the whole experience. Sadly, if you are not part of the in crowd, you end up feeling rather left out.

Conversely, it's hard to say if Lemony and his lamentable tales have any really theme or fable-like morals. The message here is mixed, offering several options that don't really fit. A Series of Unfortunate Events could be about the value of home, and having a sanctuary to call your own. But aside from a couple of nice set-piece scenes, we never really explore the heart of said concept. We could also be asked to understand the nature of family and love after a tragic loss. In the case of the Baudelaire kids, we see a great deal of unpleasantness pass before their eyes. Yet they are so emotionally vacant, so lost in a Keene painting concept of symbolic suffering, that it's hard to connect with their caring. Even when Violet reads an emotional letter from her dead parents, we are never quite sure if the kids actually mind being orphans. The cleverness of kids is also inherent to the story, about how age inversely affects innocence and invention. But again, all moments of discovery in the film are mere throwaways, meant to leave a quickly iconoclastic presence before being scuttled off screen so we can focus on another brilliant bit of craftsmanship.

Perhaps this is the ultimate legacy of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. As a film so in love with its Edgar Allan Poe meets Ethan Allen design scheme, and the magical way film can be manipulated to evoke danger, the ethereal and the ambiguously ambient, it definitely whisks us away to a world wholly unlike our own. And many of the images are so resplendent that they actually seem like picture perfect portals into another sphere of existence. Yet somehow, beyond all its glum strum and doom drang, beyond the uncanny portrayals and elusive quirks, interspersed between the Hallmark moments and the horror film homages, there is something not quite right about this screen version of the Snicket sagas. For kids, there may indeed be a moment or two that lifts them out of their daily drudgery and partners them with the Baudelaires as they try and define and defend their fate. But for us weary and wiser adults, A Series of Unfortunate Events just can't transcend its trappings. As confusing as it may sound, this is still a very good film. But it may be magnificent or memorable for all the wrong cinematic reasons.

The Video:
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events contains one of the more artistically beautiful, aesthetically solid images ever committed to film, and the DVD presentation on this delicious diorama is simply sensational. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer has a real reference quality to it, filled with amazing color choices and a huge amount of detail. Since Silberling utilized a pastel softness to render many of his backgrounds, there is a fear that this would or could blend into blandness when translated to the home theater experience. But thankfully, the visuals vibrate across the screen, captured in a completely sparkling manner by the digital domain and this disc.

The Audio:
As well as looking great, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events also sounds magnificent, thanks in no small part to the spatial ambiance created by the Dolby Digital Stereo 5.1 mix. This is not a loud film, filled with the kind of blockbuster bombast you expect from a hyperactive Hollywood entertainment. Instead, the filmmakers craft a delicate, deliberate soundscape peppered with haunting, eerie noises and crystal clear dialogue to deliver an astonishing aural attribute. Together with the amazing musical score, a real sense of openness (especially from a film shot entirely on INDOOR studio stages) and the tiny, telling aspects (like Sunny's strange baby talk), we have an auditory experience that's as lavish as the accomplished optical facets.

The Extras:
Paramount, Nickelodeon and Dreamworks really pack a great deal of excellent bonus material onto this two disc DVD presentation. Disc 1 contains commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes, some make-up tests for Jim Carrey and a discussion on the casting of the juvenile leads. The best content here has got to be director Silberling's incredibly detailed, if a tad dry in the discussion, alternate narrative track. Providing a thorough, point-by-point perspective on the entire production, as well as his own interpretation of the Snicket world, we gain a great deal of insight into some of the more potent, and perplexing, ideas in the film. Silberling defends the mixing of time frames, while arguing that it was a group of kids who demanded that the film remain dark. From how other children lead to the casting of Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep, to his aversion to relying on CGI, Silberling obviously loves his film and the artistic triumphs he feels he has achieved. This definitely comes across in his comments.

On the other hand, the second commentary track featuring the director and, as they call him, "the real Lemony Snicket" (obviously author Daniel Handler affecting a kind of Olafian voice) is rather stupid. Fans of the series will love it – Handler never once fails to channel the "oh how horrible" mannerisms of the novel's known narrator, and he does occasionally mock the movie with a nice little nod and a wink. But over the course of nearly two hours, this approach grows tiresome and plays completely as one note. Perhaps the most irritating attribute is Mr. Snicket's constant complaints that the movie is not ending. "Lemony" seems to suffer through every indignity known to man, while Silberling promises the movie will be over soon. Of course, when it doesn't end, out comes the whine and cheese. Heck, we even get a Snicket song about leeches, played on the accordion – ACK! Again, the kiddies will tune into it immediately. But for the regular viewer, this is a rather rough, ridiculous ride.

Thankfully, Disc 1 contains other far more informative featurettes. The deleted scenes reveal a lot of backstory and character depth that the main movie lacks. Additionally, you'll see an alternative ending (the Count escapes!) and some of the more sentimentalized and sanitized moments which were eventually removed. The outtakes are hilarious, especially a sequence of exchanges between a certain "entertainer" and a superstar serious actor playing a cameo role as a critic. Along with the multiple make-up tests (showing how Carrey used the process to create his individual entities) and the original cast "trailer" which helped sell the studios on Silberling's child actor choices, the supplements offered really flesh out our understanding of how Lemony Snicket came to life.

Disc 2 is all Making-Of, behind the scenes looks at every aspect of the production. Lasting over two and a half hours, we see how the world of Lemony Snicket was realized, from original sketches to massive soundstage sets, how each era-jumping contraption and Violet invention was realized, as well as how the Incredibly Deadly Viper (important to the Uncle Monty sequence) and the amazingly glum score by Thomas Newman were created. In addition, there are interactive screens that allow you to single out and eventually remix the various recorded tracks that went into the sound design of the film. We also get a typical ILM walk through the special effects in the movie, including how an animatronic and a CGI Sunny were substituted in certain scenes where a real infant couldn't be used. Along with a remarkable gallery filled with fascinating images, there is a huge amount of contextual information that makes this a great DVD package for fans of both the film and the filmmaking process.

And one final note: the menu screens featuring extensions of the animation used over the closing credits, are just remarkable. They're like intricate Tim Burton cartoons come to life.

Final Thoughts:
The list of classic live action family films is a rather short and sweet one. Once you get past The Wizard of Oz, E.T., Babe and a few other fine examples, the candidates begin to dry up and disappear. One of the main reasons why there aren't more memorable movies made is that, when creating cinema for the kids, filmmakers often forget that mindset and mentality shift across time. What seems sensational then may play pathetic or dated later. And sometimes, the storyteller stumbles, relying on too many modern or misinformed motifs to tell his supposedly timeless tale. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events falls somewhere in the middle, landing between the mythical and a mess. It radiates with a specialness that should cement its universal appeal, and yet it just doesn't sit comfortably in the fabled forms it's supposed to settle in. This is by no means a bad film, and the DVD presentation with all its depth makes this package a highly recommended edition to any film library. But unlike life as seen through the eyes of a child, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events doesn't shudder with sensationalism. It's beautiful and brave, but also a little befuddling – not exactly a description of something for the ages. Childhood memories last forever. This movie probably will not.

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