Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
June 2005 Reviewed by: Vince Hanada Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is not a typical children’s movie. It has a tragic beginning and dark themes throughout, but it manages to be wickedly funny and entertaining. It follows the misadventures of the recently orphaned Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, and is based on the first three novels in the series of children’s books by Lemony Snicket, the alter ego of author Daniel Handler.

The story starts with the children discovering that their parents have died in a suspicious fire at their mansion. The children are placed in the care of the evil Count Olaf, played by Jim Carrey, who has only one thing in mind -- their vast inherited fortune. After the children discover that Count Olaf is trying to kill them, they use their unique talents to get out of assorted precarious predicaments. Upon losing custody of the children, Count Olaf dons various disguises to get them back.

The film is a showcase of Jim Carrey’s talent, with Carrey playing not only Count Olaf but also the characters Stephano and Captain Sham. Each character is quite different from the other, and it is entertaining to watch Carrey’s outrageous overacting. Meryl Streep plays neurotic Aunt Josephine, another over-the-top character. The children, by contrast, have more subdued roles. Sunny, the youngest Baudelaire child, stole the show for me. The subtitles translating her shrieks were extremely funny.

At first, the audio quality on the DVD is disappointing. There isn’t much use of surround or the left and right front channels. However, the audio quality builds as the movie progresses, with increasingly excellent use of the surround channels. There is very deep bass. A prime example of the excellent audio quality is the train scene, with room-shaking bass supporting a rich sonic soundstage.

The video quality is outstanding, with many close-ups of faces that have excellent detail. In keeping with the dark theme of the movie, the colors are muted, and this palette shows up well in Paramount’s DVD transfer. Another standout feature of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events DVD is the animation of the menus and the closing credits. I can’t think of the last time I sat through the entire closing credits, but on this DVD I found them mesmerizing.

Some of the extras included with Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events are documentaries on Jim Carrey building his characters; "Interactive Olaf," which has Jim Carrey’s makeup and wardrobe tests in split screen; audio commentaries; and deleted scenes. The two-disc Special Collector’s Edition has an additional disc with more extras, including a "Making Of" documentary, special effects documentaries, and still galleries. The home-theater enthusiast should be sure to check out "The Terrible Train" feature on the second disc. This is a fun interactive audio sequence that allows you to play various sound effects both in isolation and together to get an idea how the final sound is mixed.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is an entertaining DVD with hilarious scenes and outrageous acting that will delight both you and your kids. My nieces, aged seven and ten, are about the right age for this DVD and give this one six stars out of five for overall enjoyment. The videophile in your house would also enjoy it for top-notch audio and video quality.

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