Mofie : City of Ember

Movie Info :

Title : The City of Ember
Genres : Action/Adventure and Science Fiction/Fantasy
Running Time : 1 hr. 39 min.
Release Date : October 10th, 2008 (wide)
Starring : Bill Murray, Toby Jones, Saoirse Ronan, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Mary Kay Place, Harry Treadaway
MPAA Rating : PG for mild peril and some thematic elements.
Distributors : Fox Walden
Production Co.: Playtone, Walden Media
Filming Locations : Northern Ireland
Produced in : United States
Director : Gil Kenan
Screenwriter: Caroline Thompson
Producer: Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, John D. Schofield
Composer : Andrew Lockington
Studio : Walden Media
Website : cityofember.com



Synopsis :

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights--underground. Built as a refuge for humanity and powered by a massive generator, this City will only sustain for 200 years. Now Ember is falling into darkness as the generator fails. Despite growing concern for the future of their beloved City, Ember's students find themselves confronting the next step in their lives.

A rite of passage for all graduates, it is Assignment Day, the day on which the Mayor himself will stand before the graduating students as they choose, by lottery, how they will spend their lives working for their society. Lina, praying with all her might to be a messenger, is devastated to be assigned to the Pipeworks, the vast network of pipes underneath the City.

Her classmate, Doon Harrow, who wants more than nothing else to work in the Generator, panics when he pulls the messenger assignment. Doon offers to swap assignments with Lina. She is thrilled and grateful and eagerly changes jobs. Thus, an unlikely friendship is born. Lina finds herself zipping all over Ember, delivering important missives to even more important people, including the mayor himself. At home she cares for her aging and forgetful grandmother, and her baby sister Poppy. When an old metal box is discovered in their closet, Lina's grandmother is overjoyed.

Completely sure that the contents of the box are of the utmost importance, she is completely bereft of any memory as to why. Lina manages to jimmy the lock open, and discovers some cryptic papers inside. Unable to piece the papers together, but sure that they are important, Lina resolves to decipher their meaning and enlists Doon's help.

As blackouts in the City become more frequent, Lina and Doon realize that the information inside that box could lead to the salvation of their City and their fellow citizens. Now racing against the clock, the two follow the clues, cleverly maneuvering around corrupt politicians and unsavory characters hoping to keep them from their goal: restoring the light in the City of Ember.

Taken From : http://movies.yahoo.com

Movie Review :

Monster House director Gil Kenan makes the leap into live-action feature filmmaking with the earnest but awkward fantasy/family film City of Ember. Based on the best-selling novel by Jeanne Duprau, City of Ember is set in an underground society whose time is quickly running out. The titular city was built two centuries prior as a refuge from humanity but now the massive generator that gives Ember life is falling apart. The people of Ember will soon find themselves trapped in the darkness. Two youths, Lina Mayfleet (Atonement's Saoirse Ronan) and Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway), take it upon themselves to rescue their doomed society.

The citizens of Ember only work one job -- assigned to them in a lottery on their Assignment Day -- for their whole lives; Lina is a messenger, while Doon works in the Pipeworks. Doon hopes to find a way to save the generator and thus his beloved city. Meanwhile, Lina finds a mysterious old box in her grandmother's closet, but her Granny (Liz Smith) has no recollection of why it is so vitally important.

Lina asks Doon for help in deciphering the clues in the box. They soon realize that the box holds a long lost secret left behind centuries before by the city's venerable Builders: a now badly tattered set of instructions on how to escape the crumbling city. The kids also discover that the city's beloved, all-powerful Mayor (Bill Murray) is not as good-intentioned as the loyal and law-abiding denizens have been led to believe. Incurring the wrath of the mayor and his cronies (Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook) adds a sense of urgency to Lina and Doon's need to escape the City of Ember.

Tim Robbins co-stars as Doon's mechanically-inclined dad, while Martin Landau provides additional comic relief as Doon's elderly co-worker Sol. Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Clary, and Mary Kay Place appears as Mrs. Murdo.


While the imaginative Kenan deserves kudos for making the leap to live-action after his acclaimed performance-capture family film Monster House, City of Ember may have been better suited as a CG-animated tale. Indeed, many of its conceptual flaws and lapses in logic related to living in an underground city for 200 years might have been forgiven if it were "just a cartoon." It's simply tough to suspend one's disbelief -- and the movie never tries hard enough to not make you question things -- that people could survive on green house plants and canned food for so long or that they don't know a thing about the surface world. What do they do with their dead? Or their sick? What about criminals? There's been no robbery, rape or murder after being cooped up together underground for two centuries? Hell, forget all that -- what about toilet paper?!

The script by Caroline Thompson never allows the viewer to get to know any of the characters particularly well. As a result, it's difficult to become engrossed in the story's central journey or to care much about the fate of the people of Ember when you don't understand why they're all so naive, complacent and incurious. For a society on the brink of extinction, they're sure handling things relatively well. These people don't just live in a bubble; they're not even aware there is a bubble. All save for the mayor and Doon's dad, both of whom know more than they'll let on publicly.

Bill Murray is an odd casting choice. On one hand, he perfectly captures the mayor's glibness and faux concern for his citizens; on the other, he is far too self-aware and hip to the joke to mesh with the unsophisticated society he's leading. Perhaps that's the point, but his presence pulls one out of the movie almost as often as it entertains. The standout of the cast is Ronan, who seems to have grown up quite fast in-between Atonement and Ember. If she plays her cards right, it's possible that Ronan might enjoy a Jodie Foster-like career once she reaches full maturity.

Despite some lethargic storytelling, City of Ember exhibits a great deal of imagination, particularly in Martin Laing's exquisite production design (the Ember set was built inside an old Belfast shipbuilding facility) and Ruth Myers' patchwork costume designs. Indeed, the only jarringly bad production elements are the special effects seen during a climactic raft sequence. If only City of Ember had fleshed out its ideas and characters as well as it realized its physical world then it might have been a modern fantasy classic. As it is, it's a serviceable family film worth a look-see for no other reason than to escape into a unique realm for ninety-odd minutes.

Taken From : http://movies.ign.com



City of Ember - (2008) - Official (HQ) Trailer