Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) review

(7/10)

This entertaining movie remains fairly accurate to the books with great direction and a stellar performance by veteran comedy actor Jim Carrey.

PLOT:After their mansion mysteriously burns down and kills their parents, inventor Violet (Emily Browning), bookworm Klaus (Liam Aiken), and sharp-toothed Sunny Baudelaire are sent to live with their strange "relative", Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), an actor in self-written plays. Olaf is a mean-spirited, greedy person with an eye on the enormous fortune willed to the kids by their parents, and he's willing to do anything to get to it, including killing the kids. The Baudelaire orphans must run from Olaf, whether it involves strange inventions or jumping from distant guardian to distant guardian. It's a great plot executed very well.



ACTING:The performances in this movie are alright. Jim Carrey definitely stole the show as the strange and greedy Count Olaf. Carrey has always been a favorite actor of mine, and this performance is just as comedic, entertaining, and overdone as most of his are usually. I really enjoyed him in here. The orphans were okay. There really wasn't anything special about their acting, as they were still child actors. Liam Aiken wasn't bad as Klaus, and I suppose Emily Browning was okay. The more mature extra performances, such as Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine and Billy Connolly as Uncle Monty. I really liked the way they played their roles as the paranoid grammar freak and the open-minded snake professor. Jude Law's narration as Lemony Snicket was also very nice as well. The other performances worth mentioning would be Cedric the Entertainer as the Constable and Catherine O'Hara as Justice Strauss. I didn't care too much for Timothy Spall as Mr. Poe.

SCORE:The score in here is very cool and detailed by the great Thomas Newman. Some themes are lighter pieces while others are dark and intense, with a very modern-sounding piece for the end credits.

EFFECTS:The effects in this movie weren't expertly done, but they did what they were supposed to do. I enjoyed the Lachrymose leeches and the destruction of Aunt Josephine's house best. The rest seemed a bit lazily done and almost too fake in appearance.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie is a fun watch. The movie almost stays true to its source material and is directed very nicely by Brad Silberling. The movie strays a good bit from the books by a few plot twists, but its pretty well adapted for the most part. Aside from the few inaccuracies and a couple bland performances, I also found myself upset that they didn't continue the story or explain the backstories of the family and villains clear enough. I was still left asking far too many questions. Its a fun movie, but I believe there could have been more made, or there could have been more information added.

OVERALL,a good movie with a great plot, decent acting aside from Carrey's comedic performance, cool score, lazily done effects, very nice direction, and fair accuracy to its source material, but some important twists are left out, including the backstories of the secret groups.

Me, Myself, and Irene (2000) review

(5/10)

Jim Carrey has a very good comedic performance in here, but a lot of the jokes in the script just seem to fall flat on their faces.

PLOT:Charlie (Jim Carrey) is a state trooper for the Rhode Island police with three black sons and a fairly good temper. However, after too much abuse from the people around him, something in him snaps, and he takes on a double personality. This personality, named Hank, is mean, dirty, and overall insane, but is contained by medication. The force starts to worry about him and considers kicking him out, but they give him one last job of escorting a young lady named Irene (Renee Zellweger) to New York for questioning. However, there is some underground crime going on that could get them both killed; not to mention, Charlie leaves his medication in a hotel room. So, now Charlie must protect Irene from danger while trying to keep is alter-ego at bay. It's a good plot executed fairly well.



ACTING:The performances in this movie were pretty good. Jim Carrey played a great part as the well-tempered Charlie and the mean-and-abusive Hank. It wasn't by far his best role, but he played it in a very unique way. Renne Zellweger played a decent part as the love interest, Irene, but she wasn't all that good. The other shiners would have to be the three black sons, Jamaal, Lee Harvey, and Shonte Jr., played by Anthony Anderson, Mongo Brownlee, and Jerod Mixen.

SCORE:The score and sountrack was pretty good. There were a few pretty cool alt-rock sounding songs.



OTHER CONTENT:This movie wasn't too bad, but it wasn't really too good either. It had some pretty funny parts with a good romance behind it and a somewhat-fresh idea to experiment around with. However, the Farrelly brothers usual style is here, and it shows by a lot of the jokes that are taken too far and are just not funny. They're famous for gross-out gags and crude jokes, and some of them in here work, but a lot of them just fall flat.

OVERALL,a neutral comedy with a good plot, pretty good acting, pretty good score, a few pretty funny parts, a good romance story, and a good idea to play around with, but a lot of the jokes go too far and aren't funny.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) review

(4/10)

With this being one of Jim Carrey's titular roles, you would expet this to be pretty funny. However, this was actually fairly a dumb movie.

PLOT:Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey) is a local, well-know pet detective that is said to catch any lost animal. The test of his abilities comes when Snowflake, he mascot of the Miami Dolphins, goes missing. The team representative, Melissa (Courtney Cox), puts Ace on te case of finding him. Things get more fishy, though, when other key players on the team start to go missing as well. It's an okay plot executed near-decently.



ACTING:The acting in here was okay. Jim Carrey played a fairly good role as the goofy detective, Ace Ventura. He had some good moments and some bad moments. Courtney Cox played a decent part as Melissa. The only other roles I can really mention are Dan Morino as himself, Sean Young as Lois Einhorn, and Tone-Loc as Emilio. Except for Carrey and Cox, no performance was truly good.

SCORE:The score in here wasn't anything special. It got the job done.



OTHER CONTENT:This is a weird movie. I love Jim Carrey, but this movie was just pretty stupid. Though Carrey used his typical over-acting plan to get by, some moments just didn't work for him. I had moments where I laughed out loud and I had moments that I shook my head. This movie really isn't anything special unless you really like Jim Carrey.

OVERALL,a mediocre comedy with a near-decent plot, okay acting, unimportant score, and a lot of stupidity, but some scenes made me laugh, and I love Jim Carrey.