Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Movie Review Summary

Violet is fourteen years old and she is an inventor. Whenever she is about to invent something she ties her hair into a ponytail. Klaus is a little younger than Violet and he loves books. Sunny is an adorable toddler. She doesn't talk and she likes to bite things.

Count Olaf lives in a sinister, run down place and he doesn't like the Baudelaire children. He wants the family fortune. He locks the three children into a dirty bedroom and he gives them a long list of chores. He makes them do the dishes and he threatens them in every possible way. One day he brings home his theater companions and he demands that Violet makes them all a delicious dinner. Violet finds some pasta in a drawer. The three frightened children prepare some pasta puttanesca which Count Olaf doesn't find satisfactory because he wants roast beef.

Count Olaf receives full custody of the Baudelaire children. On their way back from court he locks the children in the car and he goes to a small store. The children notice that he parked the car on the train tracks and they realize that Count Olaf wants to kill them and take their money. Violet saves the day by inventing a device and making the train take another route. Mr. Poe arrives and he takes the children away to another guardian, a man named Uncle Monty.

Uncle Monty has a house full of snakes and reptiles because he is a herpetologist. He is a nice man and he promises to take good care of the Baudelaire children. He wants to take them to Peru because he thinks that they are going to be safe there. Uncle Monty needs an assistant and Count Olaf arrives at the door in disguise. He pretends to be a herpetologist too and Uncle Monty doesn't know that he is the evil Count Olaf. Count Olaf kills Uncle Monty and he blames the unfortunate death on a deadly viper that was in the house. Sunny proves that the deadly viper is the friendliest creature on earth by playing with the huge reptile and remaining unharmed. Mr. Poe recognizes Count Olaf and takes the children away to Aunt Josephine.

Aunt Josephine lives in a strange house on the shore of an even stranger lake called Lake Lachrymose. The lake is full of deadly leeches. The leeches devoured Aunt Josephine's husband, a man named Ike. Aunt Josephine lives in a shaky house built on a bunch of huge pillars just above an abrupt shore. She is afraid that the objects will crush her so she lives in a constant state of fear. One day, Aunt Josephine and the children meet a man called captain Sham. The children recognize Count Olaf but Aunt Josephine doesn't know him and she takes the man to the house. The children return and they find that the big glass window was broken and that a strange suicide note with a lot of grammar mistakes was pinned to the wall. They decipher the code and find Aunt Josephine hiding in a cave. They take her out but Count Olaf arrives and he throws her into the lake and she is devoured by leeches.

Mr. Poe tells Count Olaf that he cannot have access to the Baudelaire fortune unless he gets married. Count Olaf decides to marry young Violet. He disguises his intentions by making the wedding seem like an innocent theater play. He convinces Judge Strauss, a real judge, to take part into the play and he threatens to harm little Sunny if Violet backs away from the marriage.

Klaus decides to take Sunny away from the attic and he realizes that Count Olaf was the one that had set their house on fire by using a huge magnifying glass. He maneuvers the magnifying glass and sets Count Olaf's marriage certificate on fire.

Count Olaf is about to be killed by his angry spectators but he disappears on time. Mr. Poe takes the Baudelaire children to yet another relative and there is hope that they are finally going to be happy. Mr. Poe makes a final stop to the burned down mansion and the children find out that a long lost letter from their parents had just arrived. The letter contains a spyglass and the fact proves that Uncle Monty and Aunt Josephine were not their relatives but members of a secret club that was studying fires.

Best part of story, including ending: I like this story because it depicts real life events. I understand that this is a work of fiction but I can't stop thinking about the thousands of abused orphans and foster children out there, It is a sad story but the characters are very enjoyable. Jim Carrey plays a magnificent and sometimes really funny Count Olaf and he manages to take away the bitterness and the sadness of the story. I liked Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine. She played the character very well.

Best scene in story: Count Olaf can be very funny in his meanness. He looks funny and rather nonthreatening in the first scene where he appears. He made me laugh when he appeared as Uncle Monty's assistant. I liked the scene where Sunny was playing with the deadly viper and she was laughing her heart out. It was an incredible scene but it was also a good one.

Opinion about the main character: I liked the Baudelaire children, they seemed so smart and so innocent. I felt for them and I can relate to their sorrow, Losing a parent is very hard but losing both parents at once is heart breaking.

LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, based on Daniel Handler's books, is a movie directed by Brad Silberling in 2004.

The parents of Violet, Sunny and Klaus Baudelaire die when the family home is burned down. The banker Mr. Poe is sent to find a tutor for the children and so bring them to Count Olaf, a distant relative. But Olaf is only interested in the Baudelaire's fortune and soon tries to murder the three kids. Mr. Poe decides then to send them to the herpetologist Montgomery Montgomery whom the Baudelaires like a lot but the unfortunate man will be murdered by the sinister Count Olaf. It's then the turn of Josephine Anwhistle, a neurotic and grammar-wise woman, to be named guardian of the orphans.

The review of this Movie prepared by Daniel Staebler