A Series Of Unfortunate Events Review
image: taken from netflix
I feel like I’ve given everyone enough time to have watched A Series Of Unfortunate Events but if you seriously haven’t watched it yet, look out as there may be some spoilers below. If you loved the book, then you’re definitely going to love this series, they followed the books almost to a tee! Episode one starts with the typical Lemony Snicket attempt to put the viewer off, “I would advise all our viewers to turn away immediately and watch something more pleasant instead.” Even the way Netflix marketed this series has stayed true to the books, repeatedly telling the viewers to avoid the series.
As you know, the series follows three ill-fated, but intelligent children: Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. After their parents die in a fire, they’re left in the care of incompetent guardians, starting with the villainous Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris), a failed actor who makes it his sole mission to get the Baudelaire family fortune.
I absolutely love Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf, not that Jim Carrey was horrible but I feel like Harris perfectly captured a balance between being funny and scary. I don’t think the 2004 version of Count Olaf matched with the version in the books and I thought they would be going in a more comedy route again with the series but I was pleasantly surprised. I also noticed that a lot of people complained about Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket but I thought he did an amazing job, he delivered classic Snicket lines in a dead-pan way which I found hilarious.
I think one of the reasons the series is so great is because they’re not rushing to fit all of the books into an hours viewing (like the film did a bit). The episodes have brilliant timing so it doesn’t feel like we're being rushed through the story or that they’re skipping bits in the book. Each episode is as enjoyable as the last and you’ll find yourself wanting more when the episode ends.
As a whole, the only negative thing about the series for me was the strange CGI that they used on Sunny, it was just completely bizarre and wasn’t really needed. Despite that, this is a series you need to watch, it’s extremely entertaining even if you haven’t read the books.