City Of Ember [DVD]

It is a honest, solid science fiction/adventure film, targeting mostly young public, but also watchable for adults. Below, more of my impressions, with some limited SPOILERS.With an unspecified catastrophe destroying human civilisation, a huge underground shelter was build to harbor a group of survivors - the "City of Ember". The city is built into a vast underground cavern and is filled with conventionally sized buildings and houses - the lights of this place are powered by a massive generator. But the city is now 241 years old - and it is slowly decaying. As generator begins to fail blackouts are occurring - and the reserves of canned goods and light bulbs are becoming depleted.The Mayor (Bill Murray), a guy both clueless AND ruthless (the worst possible combination) is unable to cope with this crisis - but is quite competent at preventing anyone of doing anything... There are however two teenagers, Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) and especially Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan), who want to do something for their dying city, even if they don't know yet what...Lina, being a descendant of one of early Mayors of City of Ember, comes from what is the higher strates in this underground society, when Doon on another hand is clearly working class - but they are nevertheless good friends and quickly become "partners in crime", when they start investigating some clues from the distant past, which the Mayor wants to remain hidden... I will not say more about the story.This is not a bad film and I watched it with pleasure. Some really good actors play here, as other than Bill Murray we have Tim Robbins, Martin Landau and Toby Jones. But this film was especially the confirmation of great talent of Saoirse Ronan, who got her big break a year earlier in "Atonement" - here, at the tender age of 14, she gives an excellent performance and her next film was going to be "Lovely Bones"...However, I can absolutely see why this film underperformed at box office - it suffers from a narrow ecological market niche. It is definitely TOO DARK for children and when we watched it, my then 10 years old daughter became ultimately scared and uncomfortable with it... SPOILER and PARENTAL WARNING: there is also one (just one) monster, a quite grotesque and yet freakishly scary thing, which, without the slightest doubt, EATS PEOPLE! For this thing alone I would very strongly advise against watching it with young children - in fact this film should be rated PG 12.On another hand, for most of adults this film will be probably not serious enough - therefore, the main adult public for "City of Ember" are, I believe, terminal science-fiction freaks like me... This "double trouble" limitation of age category created indeed a box office trap, which resulted in a financial counter-performance.It is a pity, because the story and the visual aspect of this film are not bad at all and as I already said, I watched it with pleasure. It certainly deserves to be given a chance. Enjoy!

Film was ok but books better

This was good film and reminded me of Logans run in a way of a film about a human community whose ancestors were forced to live in a city cut off from the outside world. Many generations later no one really knows why or what happened but think the world outside means instant death. In this film there is the complication that the city, which is underground, was only supposed to be used for a west period of time and they had a series of disasters which meant they have stayed too long and everything is breaking down. They are left underground with no light at regular intervals. Their food supplies are running out and as ever the rich and powerful start secretly hoarding the food for themselves while telling everyone else they are trying to help everyone. Can they find a way out and is there anywhere to go? An example of the value of books in preserving knowledge and how once lost is not necessarily rediscovered. Computers do this but what if you forget how to use the computers properly or what if the books are lost? We have actually done this with medicines where our ancestors knew about but we have completely forgotten about in forests or rainforests and many crafts have been lost. Also one reason we have foreign companies building Nuclear Power stations in the UK is the people who knew how to build them have long ago retired as we have not built any for so long so this loss of knowledge has actually happened many times all around us but we do not know what we do not know we do not know! So this is actually quite possible.

I surprised myself by choosing this film, not usually my taste. But actually I really enjoyed it. The film was well paced and directed. The actors were all good (though I might make an exception of Bill Murray - his performance was wishy washy at best.) The two young leads gave really polished performances especially Saoirse Ronan who was enchanting. Toby Jones, who I think is an underused and underrated actor, gave a solid performance and I loved Liz Smith as granny. The film reminded me of a few other films - Logan's Run, Divergent and the Goonies - even Harry Potter a little. But having said that it in no way pinched any ideas from those films - well maybe Logan's Run a little bit. Anyway it was a good way to spend an hour and a half or so, so maybe it was to my taste after all.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect before I watched 'City of Ember' , it was a dvd the kids picked up in the supermarket and I hadn't heard of it before.Now I'm glad they did pick it up as we all thoroughly enjoyed it.The story begins with a group of fairly old looking men in suits discussing an un-explained disaster and the world of ember created to save mankind. The first mayor of ember is given a metal box with 200 years on a timer, it is to be passed on to each successor so that when the time is up and the box opens the people can return to the surface.Things don't quite go to plan as 240 years later the people are still there, Ember is beginning to struggle with food supplies running low and the generator failing more each day and some of it's people begin to wonder what is beyond their little city.The story focus' on two young Emberites(not sure that's a word) who have just started their first job, together they attempt to unravel the history of their dying city.This film was so engaging and visually stunning, with every scene filled with detail.I can't recommend this highly enough, please just watch and judge for yourself, I have also bought this as a gift for several friends and family members and the all loved it too.