Movie Review: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Rated by 2 members
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that the movie may be upsetting to some
kids. The children in the movie are orphans who are
continuously mistreated. There are constant scenes of peril and
tension; though most of the violence is offscreen, we see the
aftermath. An adult strikes a child and there are other
assaults and murders and an apparent suicide. There is one
scary surprise and several shots of creepy creatures, including
rats, bugs, bats, and snakes. Some children will understand
that this is intended as macabre humor but others will not, so
parents should be particularly cautious about deciding whether
the film is appropriate for their kids. Other parental concerns
include some very crude language "said" by a baby ("shmuck,"
"bite me"), and a forced marriage with a 14-year-old
(predatory, but only with regard to her money).
Families who see this movie could talk about how we learn to respond to the unexpected, and the importance of having a Plan B (and Plans C through Z). Some kids will want to be reassured about who their guardians would be if something happens to their own parents. And families could talk about what messages they would want to read in a letter like the one from the Baudelaire parents and why books with such terrible abuse are so popular with kids.
Common Sense Media Review
They may horrify tender-hearted parents, but the
Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket (pseudonym
of Daniel Handler) are wildly popular with school-age kids.
"These books are among the most unpleasant in the world," Snicket warns crisply on the dust jacket for the first three volumes, the basis for this film, "and if you do not have the stomach for such unpleasantries as a repulsive villain, a deadly serpent, cold cucumber soup, a terrible fire, and a doll named Pretty Penny, I would advise you to read three happy books instead."
"Unfortunate events" is an understatement. The Baudelaire children are subjected to a series of guardians who are incompetent, foolish, predatory, and cruel. In fact, all of the adults in this movie are evil, weak, or stupid. And no one ever listens to the children. Adults can get rattled by situations that make "Oliver Twist" look like the Care Bears, but the children who are fans of the books delighted at the way Violet, Klaus, and Sunny manage to triumph over the direst of circumstances and the most fiendish of villains.
This movie begins as a sugary but slightly off animated tale about the littlest elf, but Mr. Snicket soon interrupts, explaining that this will be quite a different kind of story.
Violet (Emily Browning), an inventor, Klaus (Liam Akin), who reads everything, and 2-year-old Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman), who loves to bite things, are on the beach when Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall) from the bank comes to tell them that their house has burned down and their parents have been killed. He drives them to their nearest relative, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), a man who calls out "Intrude!" instead of "Enter" when they knock on the door and who needs to have the children's names written on his hands because he does not want to waste any time remembering them.
The Count puts the children to work and tries to kill them, but no one listens when they try to explain what is going on. But they finally get removed from his custody and subsequent guardians include a kindly herpetologist (Billy Connelly) and a multi-phobic grammarian (Meryl Streep). Count Olaf keeps coming back (sometimes in disguise). He wants the Baudelaire fortune and is ready to kill -- or marry -- anyone he has to in order to get it.
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