Episodic but entertaining.

| Nov 15, 2011

Book's fans will enjoy, but too creepy for some.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 25, 2010

It's all a bit superficial, but highly entertaining, wickedly funny, and alluring enough to make you want to start reading the books.

| Jun 24, 2006

If you sit back, relax and just accept it for what it is -- an enjoyable, escapist Gothic pantomime -- you will go home happy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2006

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.

| Sep 26, 2005

A phantasmagoric family film with both bite and heart.

| May 4, 2005

The main blight on the festivities is that, as always, Hollywood can't resist adding a little uplift.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 7, 2005

Heinrichs helps take your mind off the slack direction and the letdown of a climax, which ought to make the kiddies hurl Gummi Bears at the screen.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2004

The film feels episodic and overlong, and yet, you want to get lost in its world, exploring everything from the cobwebbed corners of Count Olaf's mansion to the far shores of Lake Lachrymose.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 20, 2004

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

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 20, 2004

It just kind of spins its wheels.

Full Review | Dec 20, 2004

I suspect it will disappoint the books' older fanbase, who'd been hoping for a screen villain that didn 1/2 1/2t mellow the macabreness of the book version.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 19, 2004

Please, I urge you, dear Reader, to turn away now if what you are looking for is a sun-shiny, twinkle-starred review, for what comes next is nowhere near as pleasant or uplifting.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 18, 2004

I think this one is a tune-up for the series, a trial run in which they figure out what works and what needs to be tweaked.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 17, 2004

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

| Dec 17, 2004

The visuals are dark and ominous without getting totally terrifying -- the characters feel real, but their environment is off-kilter enough to remind you that this world is one of imagination.

| Dec 17, 2004

A dark charmer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 17, 2004

Call the movie a pleasant near-miss, see it with your expectations lowered and by all means read the books again.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 17, 2004

Carrey finds his perfect role in Count Olaf.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 17, 2004

Against all odds it delights, using a compact script (by Robert Gordon), creative storytelling and the ripe comedic talents of a prodigious cast to transform written word into a near-perfect cinematic entity.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 17, 2004