DVD: Review: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

This was one that I was curious about, so I talked my wife into getting it. Overall an entertaining, original story with a stylish look. Jim Carrey is his usual self - some of his antics reminded me of Ace Ventura and Liar Liar, but a good performance all the same.

What bothered us about this movie is the context of the whole story - Count Olaf (Carrey) is trying to murder these sweet little kids throughout the entire movie to get at their family's fortune, and murders several of their guardians along the way. If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my kids watching this (or reading it) unless they were over 13 or so, and could deal with the issues of death and killing without being influenced by movies. Therein lies the problem - this is supposed to be a kids' movie (I think). Now I'm not one to complain about violence in movies or stuff like that, but this movie is geared toward kids, and deals with murder in a nonchalant sort of way. When each of their guardians are murdered (once right in front of them), they aren't traumatized like they should be, they're just like, "you monster!" and then they move on. It's no wonder death and killing are so ho-hum in the minds of today's youth. Attitudes like this are what's causing teenagers to kill people for fun. I'm not saying this movie alone would do that, it's a trend in the American psyche toward the devaluation of human life.

There, I'll step off my soapbox now.

Bottom Line: Rent it for adults and older teenagers - don't get it for smaller kids if you don't want to be disturbed by what it's telling them.