I sort of liked this movie, but not enough to recommend it. It's overlong and the "journey" portion of the movie is much too easy and lasts about 5 minutes. There was never any sense of danger and the movie suffers from "cute little kid" problems, i.e., that they are annoying.

No explanation as to why they live underground or why the inhabitants seem...stupid or at least ignorant.

On the good side is that the girl from Atonement does a good job and that Tim Robbins does as well.

C.

I saw this weeks ago and totally forgot.

I love Gil Kenan. He's got a terrific eye (City of Ember is a great looking movie) and a sharp sense of humor. These sets are gorgeous, and he knows just how to capture them.

Unfortunately, this movie kinda stinks. It's all about this awful, muddy script. Good luck making sense of anything. I can only assume there's about 45 minutes of clarifying material on the cutting room floor. Seriously; motivations don't make sense, scenes end abruptly, and there is more than one occasion where characters seem to be referencing shit that we simply have not seen or heard about.

I really do wonder what went on here.

Nice score, though.

5/10 -> C-

First of all - why is the city of Ember even there? I guess I have to read the book to answer that, but even if the book is ten times better than the movie, I don't think it's worth looking into it.

The story is awful. I was so annoyed by typical children books situations like when someone tells on someone it always tells to the wrong person that captures them and then take them to the person who was ratted out. And I'm soo pissed when protagonists carry around what's obviously a vital thing to their quest like it's just a thing they can pick up anywhere. Writers give some brains to your characters already.

That being said, the movies looks really good and everything, but it can't save a movie.

Murray plays a horrible character so laughably bad that it actually pains your stomach after some time. Robbins has such a bleak and uninteresting character that could've been played by his paper board cut-out. The kids are awful.

Blah. No wonder this movie failed bad.

Felt like a rip off of The Giver. Anyways the movie, in my opinion actually did have lots of potential. But it never really became anything other than mediocre. I have the same question as Be.redy, why was the city even there? A dull, slightly boring, go-nowhere, lifeless film. City Of Ember doesn't bring anything to the table.


C

I somehow failed to write a review for this - - I liked it. I'm a bit of a sucker for this kind of end of the world story, and I loved the set-up scene where the case is passed forward between the mayors over time. Sure, the movie was a bit slow, but I enjoyed seeing life in the city, and I especially enjoyed the performance of Saoirse Ronan here. Also, Bill Murray finally relaxes into a performance for the first time in about a decade, and it shows how great he can be. And it was also nice to see Martin Landau still out there kickin'...

4 out of 5.

Its pretty much the last 10 seconds of the Fallout intro minus Ron Perlman and mutants.

It's not a terrible film by any means, the start had me interested and I wanted to see how they would get out (mainly since I convinced myself this was going to suddenly turn into a Fallout movie and much in the way of black humour and carnage would ensue). Alas your eyes and brain are hampered by the most infuriating stalling and faffing around for 2/3s of the film.

I was sitting there literally screaming at the screen

NO YOU STUPID GIRL STOP EATING THE PAPER!! GET IT OFF HER!!.............NO YOU MORON READ IT AND FILL IN THE BLANKS WHAT ARE YOU A RETARDED HEDGEHOG!! STOP GOING BACK OUT TO WORK, FIGURE OUT THE FUCKING OBVIOUS YOU IDIOTS!!

And then when the finally get out onto the surface all I get is one ruined van to sate my post apocalypse lust. It was like kinky foreplay from a hot woman only for her to reveal she has a penis.

They needed to end the opening with this and I would have been happy

A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground City of Ember. Your family was part of that group that entered the city. Imprisoned safely behind the large City door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.
Life in the City of Ember is about to change.

Oh and give Ron Perlman a big fucking gun.