Movie Review:

City of Ember

What if you lived your whole life without i-Pods, phones, TVs, Blackberries or even a radio? What if the light in your underground world was failing? This is the reality for teens Lina (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon (Harry Treadaway) in the new sci-fi adventure City of Ember.

Story, based upon the popular novel by Jeanne Duprau, goes..... for over 200 years the underground city of Ember has sustained the lives of its inhabitants and a giant hydro-electric generator has kept the lights on. Now, the city is wearing out and blackouts are happening more and more. Teen Lina, who has just been assigned the lifetime job of messenger, and her friend Doon, who is working in the massive pipeworks in the hope of getting to the bottom of the blackouts, learn the truth, despite the denials of city officials and other adults. Will they follow in their parents' footsteps and seek the fabled exit to the surface world?

Not having read the novel, I wasn't sure what catastrophe drove the inhabitants of our world to preserve Mankind in an underground city for 200 years but I assume either a nuclear disaster or a planet-wide environmental holocaust. Either way, the citizens of Ember have been chugging along for a bit longer than the "builders" intended unaware of a surface world. Whether or not this film is a cautionary tale, it is very effective and hey, it's just fun! It will entertain you with the massive sets, fast action sequences and interesting characters and it will also make you think..."what would I do?"

You might identify with ever-hopeful and brave Lina who makes drawings of a blue sky and runs like the wind around the city delivering her messages. This is talented young Saoirse Ronan's (Atonement, The Lovely Bones) film along with cute Harry Treadaway, but the two are surrounded by very effective adult actors. The off-center Bill Murray is fun as the evil, lazy and self-centered Mayor. Oscar- winning Martin Landau is great as an ultimately heroic old geezer who repairs wrecked pipes and falls asleep on the job and the excellent Tim Robbins impresses as Doon's disillusioned inventor dad who hopes his son will have the courage he no longer possesses.

Lina and Doon put the pieces of the city's mysterious past and an escape puzzle together and you'll follow along and root for them as they confront a strange, dangerous mole creature and almost drown in a thrill-ride escape sequence. Maybe just one teen can't save our world but it's fun to watch two teens save theirs. The film makes you realize that hope can be a guiding light and each one of us has the power to make a difference.

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This movie is rated PG

Official Movie Web Site - City of Ember

Pictures courtesy of and copyright Fox Walden, 2008