Saturday 16 May 2015

Film Review: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Part 2

Last week I kicked off the first part of a three part film review of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Now we know just who the Baudelaire orphans are, who Olaf is and what pure evil looks like, the children are going to have a brief moment of happiness before everything goes downhill again.


44. This next bit is probably one of my favourite bits of the film. I love Billy Connelly!

45. When I went to the Isle of Skye I got to see one of those snakes that Uncle Monty’s carrying. Sunny does not seem very impressed by it.


46. I love that Monty has a giant tortoise just strolling (or whatever it is that tortoises do) around his house.

47. Uncle Monty reminds me of Doctor Doolittle.

48. I love how they create cliffhangers in the film in the same sort of way that they appear in the book, like with the typewriter ribbon snapping.

49. Film!Monty is a much better character than Book!Monty. He actually understands that Olaf is out to get them and needs to take the children to safety.

50. I love that they got Billy Connelly and his autoharp into the film. I did say I love this whole bit of the film!

51. Oh, another fire. A pattern is forming.

52. Snicket kids on for a moment that this is where the film ends and that everything is good from this point onwards for them. It’s not, though we could just stop the DVD now and pretend.


53. Unfortunately Jim Carrey is at the door, wearing a bad disguise and pretending to be some guy called Stephano, with a really bad fake accent. The kids have to let him in, since he’s got a great big knife.

54. Hehe, ‘he’d give anything to be here right now’, cut to Gustav chained to the front of a steam train.

55. Klaus picks this moment to fill his older sister in on the mysterious spyglass that both their father and Monty owned. But right now the children need to come up with a way to get a secret message to Monty. Time for Violet to tie her hair up again.

56. They manage it via Petunia the snake. Monty doesn’t quite get it, he thinks Stephano is a spy from the Herpetological Society. So not going to end well!

57. This bit makes me sad. :-(

58. So now the children have not only lost their parents, they’ve lost Uncle Monty as well. Just to hammer this home, we get a quick shot of Monty’s gravestone.

59. Time for another of those cliffhanger moments as Sunny heads towards the Incredibly Deadly Viper, while Stephano/Olaf tries to get the children out of the room, and Sunny suddenly screams.


60. CGI Sunny is playing with the Incredibly Deadly Viper, thereby proving that Stephano/Olaf was making it all up.

61. And so it’s time to move on to the next guardian.

62. I do like the little ferry they go across on.

63. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as odd that none of our relatives are related to us?’ Yes Klaus, yes it does!

64. Meryl Streep plays a good part in this film though Film!Josephine annoys me as much as Book!Josephine does.

65. I love how all of the random things Josephine says, like not using the radiators or doorknobs comes back again in a little while.

66. Josephine is scared of the stove and yet she still has one. If she’s that scared you’d think she would get rid of it.

67. Josephine’s gone from one crazy extreme to another!

68. And we get another clue regarding the mysterious spyglasses, but don’t expect to learn any more about those just now.

69. I love Sunny’s response to learning Ike was eaten by leeches. ‘Oh-kay’.

70. Violet looks utterly horrifed at being grabbed by a weeping Aunt Josephine.


71. Aw, Sunny knocking over the basket and her little ‘uh oh’. I can’t help but wonder if they just kept filming the little girls playing Sunny, waiting for them to do something cute.

72. And look. Olaf’s back again! This time as Captain Sham who is apparently as dedicated to good grammar as Josephine is.

73. ‘Who could love a man with one leg and a face like a hen’s arse?’ You said it, mate.

74. Oh look, more of Olaf’s troupe. There’s no escape!

75. Josephine appears to have disappeared and the house seems to be threatening to fall off the cliff. Now would be a good time to leave!

76. Hehe, Violet gets so annoyed at Klaus spell-checking the suicide note. Luckily Klaus has remembered some books about cryptography and he’s able to figure out what Josephine was trying to tell them.

77. And then the house starts to fall off the cliff. But first they have to pause to take in some photos of fires and a picture of an eye window.

78. There’s no time to dwell on this discovery though as all those freaky things Josephine warned them about.

79. There goes the fridge that could crush them.

80. Then radiators explode, as does the stove.

81. Then a doorknob gets super heated and shatters into molten pieces.


82. And so the children wind up stranded on the remains of a bit of floor, perilously attached to the cliff but with no way off. Thank goodness Violet has her hair ribbon!

83. Bye bye home number three!


I’ll leave Violet, Klaus and Sunny there for now, homeless and orphaned again. Stop by next week to learn just what has happened to Aunt Josephine, what will happen to Aunt Josephine, and what other unfortunate events are lined up for the Baudelaires.

2 comments:

  1. AH the film arrived in the post, but I am yet to watch it. . . . But it still sounds rather interesting and Billy Connelly is awfully good.

    It appears many bloggers have gone quiet after the A to Z,. I am glad to see you are still hanging in there, well done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hope you enjoy it. I'm a massive Billy Connolly fan as well. He's such a great character.

      My first A to Z Challenge three years ago kind of got me into the habit of blogging every day and I've tried to stick with it ever since. ;-)

      Delete

Let me know what you think. :-)