culbeda

Other than the names of the characters and the house, this bore almost no resemblance to the books. Compressing 5 books totaling almost 600 (sparse) pages into 95 minutes IS a challenge, but this "adaptation" sucked the soul from the series and turned it into a mini-horror movie for kids.

If you have young kids, skip the movie and read the books. They're a quick read and offer so much more entertainment, imagination and wonder than this movie did.

Things you'll find in the books that you won't find here: Characters that aren't complete jerks, mystery, a sense of adventure, more existing creatures and far more interesting challenges.

Let me start by saying that the commercial that the commercial that Will Ferrell did for ACT before the 2004 election was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. ("Oh, I didn't see you there. I was just mending my fences" while he's hammering on a fence with the back of a pick axe).

This atrocity, was one of the least humorous things I've ever seen. Bush is the easiest comedy fodder on the planet. (And since we live in a world with Sarah Palin, that's saying something.) But Ferrell can't seem to capitalize well on this. The commercial for this bit with the segment of the trees was funnier than anything in this mess.

Now, in fairness to the show, I gave up watching it after about an hour. So maybe it finished strong. But I couldn't wait any longer for it to finally go somewhere.

I gave this 3 stars only because it exposed some of the tragically humorous things about Bush and Cheney to a wider audience. If I were to base this entirely on humor, it would have gotten a 1 or a 2.