A Series of Unfortunate Events
Tags: comedy, fantasy, gothic, murder, bleak, cult, flashback, psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
Fourteen-year-old inventor Violet Baudelaire, her twelve-year-old brother Klaus, and their baby sister Sunny are orphaned when a fire burns down their house and kills their parents. Mr. Poe, the family's banker, manages their fortune and leaves them in the care of their closest relative Count Olaf, who is only interested in obtaining their fortune despite Violet not being the legal age of eighteen. He also forces them to work through grueling house chores and belittles them.
The day Olaf obtains full custody, he pretends to go into a store claiming to buy soda, but Violet notices the car is parked directly on train tracks with a train heading towards them. They manage to build a device to turn the switch controlling the tracks so that they are not hit. Mr. Poe arrives and takes them away when he sees Sunny in the front seat, believing her to have been "driving." Olaf initially says farewell, but threatens them that they will always be found.
The orphans are then taken to their uncle Dr. Montgomery, a kind, caring herpetologist who is planning to take the children with him to Peru. However, Olaf arrives in disguise as a man named Stephano. The orphans attempt to warn Montgomery, and he believes to an extent. Montgomery believes Stephano is after a large viper in his museum, which despite its looks, is actually very gentle. He is discovered dead shortly after, and the orphans cannot prove that Stephano is responsible for Montgomery's death. They are almost taken back to him when Sunny proves the viper's innocence when it fondles and licks her, disproving its hostile nature. Stephano flees the scene, ridding all proof of his disguise as the police pursue him.
Mr. Poe leaves them with their Aunt Josephine, a kindly woman who is nonetheless obsessed with grammar and has irrational fears. Olaf appears disguised as Captain Sham to interfere with their plans again. One day, Josephine is not at the house, claiming to have run away with Sham; Klaus takes advantage of her grammar skills to decode her location; Curdled Cave. A hurricane sweeps through the town, ultimately destroying the house but allowing the children to flee before the structure falls apart. They sail to the cave and rescue her, but attract leeches due to Josephine having eaten a banana. Olaf appears and takes the kids with him, throwing Josephine off the boat and to the Lachrymose Leeches after she corrects his speech.
A play is soon planned that is called "The Marvelous Marriage" that involves Olaf and Violet as the leads; a groom and a bride. Klaus's suspicions reveal that Olaf is planning to take advantage of the play to marry Violet in reality in a desperate attempt to get the fortune. Unless Violet follows her lines or finds a loophole, Sunny, who is being held hostage in a cage, will be dropped to her death.
Klaus manages to escape and finds a hidden tower in Olaf's house that, if positioned correctly, can shine light. He discovers this way that it was Olaf who set the fire to their old house. He uses this window to burn the marriage certificate before the marriage is officially complete, leading to Olaf's arrest. However, a jury of his peers overturn his sentence and Olaf vanishes.
Violet, Klaus and Sunny are allowed to visit their old home one last time. A letter lost in the mail finally arrives, and inside is a spyglass announcing their family's secret society. Though their future is unclear, despite the children's misfortune, they still had each other thus making them "Very Fortunate Indeed".

Review: This is a superb job of combining great visuals, special effects and an entertaining story.The two kids, played by Emily Browning and Liam Aiken, should get top billing since they are in every scene while Jim Carrey is in about half.
I appreciated his work even more on the second viewing.The kids are likable, good-looking and decent actors and the "baby" is given the funniest "lines" in the movie - all in subtitles.This film is too dark for the little kids but fun for adolescents on up.
In this role Jim Carrey excels, never goofing off to much to undermine the credibility of the character, but being suitably over the top to convey the eccentric old count.Visually, the film is stunning, the sets look straight out of a Tim Burton film, the costumes are fantastic, the direction is splendid and does a fine job of progressing the story.
In the wake of Harry Potter the popular Lemony Snicket books have been rushed into production and considering the less than promising prospect of Brad Silberling directing and Jim Carrey starring, I didn't really hold out much hope.
It turns out that the film is surprisingly good and apart from The Incredibles this was the only big budget Hollywood film I truly enjoyed this year.Like Harry Potter, the Lemony Snicket books appeal to adults as well as to children but they are darker, funnier and more eccentric, making them more of a cult than the mainstream success of the Harry Potter series.If you've read the books, you may miss the clever word play and you may feel that the two older children are miscast.
The look of the film is a highly stylized mixture of Edwardian times and the 1950's and convincingly brings to life the parallel universe of the books, where death is ever present and where the whole world has conspired to make the Baudelaire children's life a misery.Folding books two and three into the storyline of the first one, the plot feels episodic but it stays consistently entertaining.
Grant would have been the perfect choice) but he nails and certainly looks the part of evil, failed thespian Count Olaf and thankfully he doesn't end up dominating the film, turning it into the Jim Carrey show.The section involving Meryl Streep's fearful Aunt Josephine is the best part of the film.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events was a silent hit of 2004, I remember I wasn't too sure if I wanted to see it or not because it just looked too dark for what I thought it was intended to be, a family film.
The sets and costumes were marvelous and the story was a frightening but imaginative one that I'm sure any film fan would enjoy to watch.Three children: Klas, Violet, and Sunny have just lost their parents and home to a horrible fire.
After attempting to kill them, they are taken to a safer guardian, but Orlof isn't going to give up so easily, he is going to go through as many guardians as it takes to get back these children.Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is a terrific film, I was incredibly impressed, I'm glad I decided to give it a chance.
Certainly this is a fantastically well made movie, that is for the most part very well acted but something is amiss in the tone of the film and so it never really is what it should be.The story of three children who's parents are killed and who are forced from guardian to guardian by the murderous acts of Count Oloff is pretty bleak.
It seems as if they were afraid that the material was going to be seen as too dark, which is a shame since its clear from the sequences where they left well enough alone that the film could have stood on its own.Its a good movie, instead of the great one it wants to be.Definitely worth seeing..
However, and while it may be an odd thing to say, is that was the best set of credits I've ever seen.They were beautifully done, well done to whoever it was that created them...the artwork was spectacular and the animation perfectly in tune with the tone of the books.very entertaining...well done!In addition I would like to add than Jim Carrey fitted the role of Count Olaf perfectly, and while I may not be a huge fan of his previous work he provided the much needed humour to keep the story moving the watcher intrigued.
Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books, in which siblings Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire start off being orphaned by a fire and then having things go downhill from there, embraces that philosophy with a dark, sly humor that is irresistible.
Fortunately, Brad Silberling has kept the spirit of the series mostly intact with this film translation.The movie encompasses Snicket's first three books, in which Violet (Emily Browing), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny are foisted off on several guardians by the dimwitted executor of their parents' estate (Timothy Spall).
Olaf pursues them throughout, aided by disguises which he considers brilliant and which fool everyone except, of course, the ever-observant Baudelaires.Most of the elements which make Snicket's books so appealing are present here: the entertaining characters, the cleverness of the children, Snicket's delightful black humor (given voice by Jude Law), and even the cunning reverse-psychology promotional scheme of the series (in which the reader/viewer is told, no really, you DON'T want to hear this story, go find something more cheerful, etc.).
The production design (combining the best parts of Tim Burton and Edward Gory) creates a fanciful but accessible world which modern inventions like remote car-keys are wielded by characters who dress like they just stepped out of a Victorian melodrama.It is perhaps too much to ask that the film could have avoided a Hollywood-style attempt to soften its delightfully dreary outlook, or that Carrey could have gone the entire movie without having at least one sequence in which he's just required to be Jim Carrey.
(I want to ask him if there's a reason why one of his themes sounds like "We Three Kings" gone awry.) I'm writing this comment primarily to respond to the wacky criticisms of LEMONY that I've been reading here on IMDb. Most fall into two categories: 1) people who don't "get" the movie and haven't read the books (and therefore are offended by its dark tone), or 2) adolescents who are obsessed with the books and are disappointed that their little dreams of how the movie should be haven't been perfectly realized (e.g., "the boy doesn't have glasses, so this movie stinks").Let me address the second group.
I just watched this film and to be honest it exceeded all expectations, i started watching this film and didn't know what to expect as i hadn't read the books and had no past knowledge of what it was about..but i thought the acting was awesome, especially from Jim Carrey who i didn't even realise was in the film till the credits at the end..The story line was very good with a lot of funny bits which kept me entertained and hooked all the way through..i would highly recommend watching this film whether it is with your family or just to watch on a quiet night in and would almost guarantee enjoyment.
When Klaus, Violet and Sunny Baudelaire loose their parents in a fire in their mansion, the greedy and evil Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) tries to become their guardian to steal their fortune.This movie is a great family entertainment.
The screenplay of this story of orphans is very original; the make-up of Jim Carrey is spectacular; the very dark cinematography recalls the movies of Tim Burton; the direction is great and the children have excellent performances.
For me, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is an excellent film, regardless of how closely it "matches" the Daniel Handler books that form the creative basis.
If you're at all a fan of surrealism, especially surrealism with a dark edge (although the film is certainly not without humor), you can't afford to miss this movie.The story is centered on the Baudelaire kids, Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken) and infant Sunny (played by twins Kara and Shelby Hoffman).
The film tells the story of how they are shuttled from home to home of different "relatives", with the particularly manipulative and sadistic Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) in hot pursuit of the Baudelaire family fortune after the state finally sees the error of its ways in leaving the kids with him.If you think of the "Do you think it's all right to leave the boy with Cousin Kevin?" section of Ken Russell's Tommy (1975) stretched out into feature length, made a bit less vicious, sprinkled with liberal doses of Roald Dahlian fantasy, and set in a delightfully anachronistic mishmash alternate universe that combines everything from Victorian fashion sensibilities to postmodern "retro-tech" Terry Gilliam-like gadgets, you'll have a good idea of what the film is like.
Even though Handler's books are clearly marketed as children's fiction, and the film was also pitched towards a young audience, the material is darker, more twisted and maybe a bit too intense than some parents would like for their pre-teens, not to mention that younger kids may likely find it boring, anyway.
The message throughout the film tends to be that intellect can overcome any conundrum--and that even goes for the villain; he just has a bit less intellect than the Baudelaire kids.The actors playing the Baudelaire kids are good, and the rest of the cast contains a lot of starsCarrey, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, Billy Connolly, Catherine O'Hara, Luis Guzman, and so on.
Please stay away.If you have read the book on which this movie was based (actually, it was based on pieces of three books in the Lemony Snicket series), you know that the book also carried a warning to children not to read it, insisting they would not like it.
Of course, that was just a promotional gimmick because, I understand, the book was actually quite good; the children in the story were subjected to a series of trying events but they stuck together and worked things out through their own ingenuity, and celebrated each triumph.That doesn't happen in this movie.
This is Jim Carrey running amok, behaving like a deranged idiot, without purpose, focus, or sense of fun.In some ways, this movie has a 'Tim Burton' feeling to it.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is an interesting movie and seems that it is a film that should have been directed by Tim Burton.
When the three Baudelaire children are orphaned and sent to live with various relatives, the evil Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) repeatedly tries to kill them to get his hands on the family fortune.
The film is directed by Brad Silberling who does a good job but I think Tim Burton would have made a better director since he made Big Fish and that was a pretty good movie.
The first two because things just happen that don't make sense, Harry Potter because of the costumes and scenery and a few Brits, and The Mask because Jim Carey is hopping all over the place being obnoxious.It's hard to believe that so many good reviews have been written about this film.
However, in the film, since it revolves around the three books condensed, the repetitive theme-- Olaf's plan to kill the kids and various adults refusing to believe this forcing the children to deal with Olaf themselves-- gets rather tedious.Also, while the three children give good performances, even the toddler who plays Sunny, Jim Carrey who plays Olaf is too camp and humorous for such a sinister, menacing role.
As for Meryl Streep, Billy Connolly and Dustin Hoffman, all were woefully underused that you barely felt their presence.Younger Lemony Snicket fans will probably enjoy this story but those in their teens or adults may find it too childish in comparison to many elements in the books.
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS puts the spotlight on two kids who suffer an almost Dickensian fate complete with a villainous uncle, Count Olaf (JIM CARREY) and an eccentric Aunt Josephine (MERYL STREEP).
Lemony Snicket's - A Series of Unfortunate Events was a quite delicious surprise, i really had no clue as to what to expect, but i found a very well made, dark, humorous and quite bizarre fantasy, and i really enjoyed it.Brad Silberling directs this film wonderfully, the imagery and overall quality of production is great, all the cast are inspired and the screenplay is intriguing and refreshingly different.If you're looking for something that's unusual and dark, if you like any member of the cast or even if you like a film that is a little similar in its feel to a lot of Tim Burton's work; then this is a safe bet.8/10.
If you like the books, don't go see the movie because every time you think of Count Olaf you will think of Jim Carrey trying way too hard to be funny.
-the screenplay wasn't nearly as bad as they say in some reviews (it was quite good actually, and it resembled the books' style) -yes they did stuff a few books into one movie but it really sped things up and worked better then it usually does -the characters looked the way I imagined them -ok, so there was an optimistic (not happy, just optimistic) ending, but so what?
With different actors (i.e. Jim Carrey) or maybe a better director this could have been a good movie.
Directed by: Brad Silberling Starring: Jim Carrey, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Kara & Shelby Hoffman, Catherine O'Hara, Billy Connolly, Timothy Spall, Meryl Streep, Jude Law (voice) Lemony Snicket (the pseudonym of Daniel Handler) and his Series Of Unfortunate Events could be one of the best Tim Burton films not directed by Tim Burton.
His Count Olaf is a thoroughly despicable villain.A Series Of Unfortunate Events (which is actually based on three books by Lemony Snicket himself) is a terribly imperfect film thanks to some plot holes, a brush with melodrama that doesn't quite pay off and a cop-out ending.
If I weren't forced every moment to think to myself "hey, that's Dustin Hoffman" or "boy, I didn't know Meryl Streep could act so poorly" (in other words, if they would have used a few less big names which I am sure they were using to make extra sure that I would go away convinced that the movie was pure gold), then maybe I could have stayed at least a little bit inside of the film.
Daniel Handler's immensely popular books (think the Harry Potter series without sweetness) have been successfully adapted with stunning set design and most importantly the genius of Jim Carrey as the count.Unlike the magical Potter kids Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Beaudelaire (the name being the only sweetly poetic turn in this dark tale) have a few talents to help themselvesViolet an ingenious inventor and Klaus a reader who forgets not a wordyet they are pretty much buffeted by the inept or insane adults who move them around like chess pieces until the kids can take it no more and seriously invoke their special skills.
Children and adults should savor two of the best actors in film playfully playing off each other.Because "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" is unarguably about the dark side of survival in a corrupt adult world, the challenge for young moviegoers is to enjoy the irony and sarcasm, or even to recognize it.
Narrator Lemony Snicket (voice of Jude Lawnow where have we seen him this year!) warns more than once that this is not a traditional feel good movie, but that will not help very young children understand the comic subtext of grim events or the Panglossian optimism of everything happening for the best.
Everything that makes the books great has been removed and what is left is a plot free mishmash.The worst part is Jim Carey playing Jim Carey, who once again defecates on a children's classic as he did in The Grinch.There are good things about the movie.
Oh and someone should tell Jim Carrey that a) he sucks and b) he needs to learn that some stories do NOT benefit from his eccentric acting and slapstick humour....this being one such film.Script wise, this movie seemed to completely ignore everything daniel handler integrated into his books in the way of black humour, style and even plot.
I mean the story is good, thanks to Lemony Snicket's (Daniel Handler) books, the sets are great, Jim Carrey is more calm than usual (thank god!)and Meryl Streep is wonderful as always.
The Series of Unfortunate Events was a great book series, and I personally think that they should make them like the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings books and do one movie per book...that way you would be able to include more of the important stuff instead of having to add in things that didn't actually happen to make it better...It just doesn't make sense.
They are all given to Count Olaf for care and all he wants is their wealth and he will do anything to get it.This plot really sticks with you and I think that narrator Lemony Snicket (Jude Law) is great thing for this movie.
You also have some great actors that did a great job in this flick as well like Cedric the Entertainer, Billy Connolly, Cathrene O'Hara, Meryl Streep, and Jude Law as the voice of the narrator/Lemony Snicket.Bottom line, it's an enjoyable and dark movie with a great story and performance by Carrey himself..
Maybe it would have been a better movie had Tim Burton got to direct it, and cast Johnny Depp as Count Olaf instead of Jim Carrey.
The Potter books remind me a lot of Lemony Snicket ones.Jim Carrey is good as the evil Count Olaf.