The first of what will doubtless be a long series from Lemony Snicket's hugely popular books establishes its credentials from the off, feeding the viewer a bright, shiny, cartoon before letting us know that this is not what we're in for. Instead the three Baudelaire children are no sooner introduced than they are orphaned.
Snicket's world is our nearest modern equivalent to the Grimm fairy tales considered far too scary for modern children. In my experience, kids love to scare themselves and this fabulous-looking movie - it shares a production designer with the equally dazzling Sleepy Hollow - gives them an ideal world for doing so. It's real enough to get dizzying vertigo looking down from Aunt Josephine's precarious and collapsing house. But the adults and settings are also cartoony enough to provide some distance to keep it scary, not terrifying.
Its kids - the inventor, the bookworm and the biter - are very well played and its adults are the cream of the crop - Meryl Streep, Timothy Spall and Billy Connolly play key roles and Jim Carrey gets to do his thing in a variety of guises as Count Olaf, the uncle with a nose that could cut paper, who is after the family inheritance. He's dastardly, but not dastardly enough to fool these smart kids, which means he can let rip to an almost Mask-like degree as a villain who's not as smart as he thinks he is. He gives the movie most of its energy and its settings - Lake Lachrymose and Curdled Cave, with its giant leeches to the fore - can take your breath away, while stories about plucky kids outdoing bad or stupid adults are always winners. In plot, this is close to The Borrowers, but visually it has touches reminiscent of the great Charles Laughton film, Night of the Hunter.
Director Brad Silberling has a firm grip on proceedings, and I can't think of anything against it except for the subtitled baby - a terrible idea also used in Meet the Fockers.
