Lemony Snicket's : A Series Of Unfortunate Events
| Starring : | Jim Carrey, Billy Connolly, Meryl Streep,
Timothy Spall, Jude Law, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Kara Hoffman
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| Director : | Brad Silberling |
| Year : | 2005 |
| Studio : | Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures |
Lemony Snicket's : A Series Of Unfortunate Events is a fantastic visual feast of a film.
Every scene has been designed specifically to create the weird and wonderful world
of Lemony Snicket. Jim Carrey is phenomenal in this film.
 Somebody better have him
arrested quick because he is an actor who can actually act !
The character of Count
Olaf in the hands of Carrey is a work of genius.
The story is narrated by Lemony Snicket (Jude Law) and it begins with the Baudelaire
children who we learn have become orphans as
their parents have died in a house fire. The Baudelaire's are talented little orphans.
The oldest Violet (Emily Browning) is one of the finest fourteen year old inventors in the world.
Her brother Klaus (Liam Aiken) loves books and he remembers everything he reads.
 The youngest
child Sunny (Kara Hoffman) has an unusual talent in that she loves to bite things.
The Banker Mr Poe (Timothy Spall) tells the Baudelaire children of their tragic loss at Briney Beach.
Mr Poe then drops the children off at their Uncle Count Olaf's (Jim Carrey) house. Count Olaf is a
nasty man who has only one thing on his mind - the Baudelaire fortune. The children
and Count Olaf take an instant dislike to each other. Count Olaf instantly puts the children to work
performing gruelling chores.
It is not too long before Olaf devises a plan to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune.
He takes the children into the country where he decides to "stop for a treat". He stops
the car on the railway tracks goes into a little store and waits to get rich. The Baudelaire's
however by using their various talents manage to escape the train just in time.
Mr Poe finds out about this incident and takes the children off Count Olaf but Count
Olaf promises the Baudelaire's that he will still get them.
Mr Poe now drops the children off at uncle Monty's (Billy Connolly) house.
The uncle wants to take the children to Peru but they never get there.
The next thing that happens is that Count Olaf appears on the front doorstep dressed
as Mr Stefano an Italian Man. The children recognize him instantly but uncle Monty doesn't.
Unfortunately uncle Monty dies and Mr Stefano blames it on a poisonous snake. Sunny
starts to play with the supposedly poisonous snake and Mr Stefano promptly vanishes.
The Baudelaire's are then dropped off at their Aunty Joesphine's (Meryl Streep) place.
She is afraid of everything and especially realtors and lives in a strange house which
is perched on the edge of a cliff. Count Olaf dresses up as Captain "Sham" and forces
her to write a suicide note saying that she leaves the children in the care of Olaf.
Josephine encodes a message in a note which the children decode. They find out that
Josephine is in Curdled Cave but before they can go to her they must first escape the
rickety house which is falling apart.
After another ingenious idea they avoid being killed and they get in
a boat and follow their aunty to Curdled Cave. They pick her up in the boat but then
they are intercepted by flesh eating leaches. Count Olaf appears and rescues the children
but lets Josephine die. Mr Poe tells him that if the children die he gets no fortune. Olaf
devises a scheme to marry Violet so that he can get his hands on the fortune that way.
Olaf makes up a play where he can marry Violet and the marriage will
be legal binding. He puts Sunny in a cage on top of a tower and tells
Violet that if she doesn't say I do then Sunny will drop cradle and all.
He arranges to use a bonafide Justice of the Peace to make
the marriage legally binding. Once Olaf has the marriage certificate he
boasts about his entire despicable plan to get the Baudelaire fortune.
At the last minute however Klaus uses a magnifying glass to
burn the marriage certificate..
That is it for Count Olaf and a judge orders him to go through all the
misfortunes he bestowed on the Baudelaire's such as getting run over by a
train, being trapped in a collapsing house, and being eaten by leaches. At the end
of the film the children find a letter from their parents. It tells them that
they are not dead and that they are at the beginning of a journey. The
Baudelair's then ride off into the sunset in Mr Poe's car.
This really is a brilliant and creative movie. The set design is incredible and
the acting from Jim Carrey is exceptional. This movie is not just for kids as
it can easily be enjoyed by adults as well. I haven't actually read the books
so I don't know how true the film is to the books but the film itself is an astounding
piece of work.
Review By John
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