An amiable little family-friendly sci-fi adventure, director Gil Kenan’s City of Ember is reasonably fun and fast-paced; kids should be entertained. But it’s also more than a bit dull, which is strange given the setting and Kenan’s previous feature, the irrepressibly weird (all all the better for it) animated film Monster House.
Hundreds of years in the future, a society of underground dwellers resides in the majestic titular city. But things aren’t all going according to plan: the city’s power generator seems to be faltering, and the food supply is running low.
Teenager Doon (Harry Treadaway) thinks he can fix the generator, but on Assignment Day, where the youngsters are given the jobs they will carry out for the rest of their lives, he pulls ‘messenger’ out of the bag. Still, he’s able to trade up to pipeworker with friend Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan). Close enough to the generator to maybe work.
Now, Lina finds a 200-year-old box that was passed down by the town mayors until it was forgotten, and seems to contain some directions for getting out of the city. Maybe there’s more to the world than Ember.
My biggest complaint here is a lack of exploration of the film’s sci-fi elements: what happened and why these people are living underground is never really explained.
I assume there was some nuclear apocalypse, and the 200-year-old box opens when it’s safe to go back outside – that would explain the giant, mutated moles and insects – but then again, Ember doesn’t seem to be a fallout shelter completely separated from the outside world, with tunnels that lead directly to it.
But this is first and foremost a kid’s movie, so expectations should be tempered – short attention spans are catered for.
The leads are a bit bland, which is surprising given Ronan’s dynamite, Oscar-nominated turn in Atonement. But a nice supporting cast really livens things up, especially Bill Murray as the town mayor, Frank Langella as Doon’s superior at the pipeworks, and Tim Robbins as Doon’s father. Murray is an absolute riot as the “who, me?” mayor, his screentime disappointingly short.
