Starring:
Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, Emily Browning, Liam Aiken, Billy Connolly, Jude Law, Kara Hoffman, Cedric the Entertainer, Jennifer Coolidge, Shelby Hoffman, Timothy Spall, Craig Ferguson, Jane Adams, Jamie Harris, Catherine O'Hara, Dustin Hoffman, Luis Guzman.

Director: Brad Siberling
Producer: Albie Hecht, Laurie MacDonald, Walter F. Parkes, Julia Pistor.
Duration: 1 hr. 53 min
Cinematographer: Emmanuel Lubezki
Composer: Thomas Newman
Executive Producer: Bill Corso, Valli O'Reilly
Distributor: Paramount Pictures

The Story:

This is the story of the Bauedelaires, three young orphans, Violet (Browning), Klaus (Aiken) and Sunny, looking for a new home, who are taken in by a series of odd relatives and other people, including Lemony Snicket, who narrates the film, and starting with the cunning and dastardly Count Olaf (Carrey), who hopes to snatch their inheritance from them. Violet is the oldest of the Baudelaires at 14, and is their brave and fast-thinking leader. The only boy is middle child Klaus, 12, who is intensely intelligent and obsessed with words. The youngest is infant Sunny, who speaks in a language only her siblings can understand, and she has a tendency to... bite.

Review:

From the time that the first book in the "Unfortunate" series was published several years ago, the three Baudelaire children (Violet, Klaus and Sunny) have been trying to find safe place in a world filled with danger. 11 books later, the children have passed from the care of one well-intentioned adult after another, leaving a several corpses in their wake. Their onetime guardian, Count Olaf, is the one who hopes to steal their fortune. But now the characters have been involved on one of the most dangerous adventures known in modern literature.
Like the previews Baudelaires' adventures, the last one is filled with menace, though here the overarching vibe is action-focused and less gothic. Brad Silberling as the director and Robert Gordon as the writer, the film is based on the first three books of the series and begins with the Baudelaires learning they are orphan from their parents' loyal but useless lawyer, Mr. Poe (played by Timothy Spall), who sends them off to their nearest living relative which is Count Olaf (played by Jim Carrey). Violet, Klaus and Sunny try to be brave not yet aware of the threats posed by greedy relations!!!

Things look crooked as soon as the Baudelaires enter the count's rotting mansion. In this freaky house the children soon discover their cousin's intentions. Modest abuse ensues, with the Baudelaires forced to make a puttanesca sauce from scratch, as does a near-brush with death. The young actors playing the Baudelaires give their heroes a human stand and do their best to get the viewers attention.

Silberling has made a movie that's far rougher than the story in the books, but while he doesn't have the author's sense of whimsy (or irony) he manages to construct a pleasantly watchable entertainment in all the spaces in the story.
The story in the book may have been better given in the big screen with less money and special effects since neither their delicacy nor their charmingly idiosyncratic digressions are easily transposed from page to screen but it is still a great movie to watch.


Watch The Trailer
Official Website