City of Ember

Review by Anthony Morris
Watch Trailer : City of Ember

There is so much to like about this film it is hard to figure out exactly why it doesn't work. 

For starters, there is the look of the film, because clearly someone has been studying their Terry Gilliam films...

The technology in the underground city of Ember has the bizarre, jerry-rigged look he is known for, while the buildings have the crumbling, decaying feel that Gilliam has made famous.

The only real difference, it seems, is this is an actual finished film - which Gilliam can't persuade Hollywood to let him do all that often these days. 

The story shows a lot of promise too.

Faced with the "End of the World" a group of scientists built the City of Ember deep underground, populated it with people who knew nothing about the outside world, and gave them a box set to open after 200 years that would tell them how to return to the surface.

Things being as they are, the box was lost. Two hundred years passed, nothing happened, and now the city is slowly beginning to run down. It's electrical lights are failing, plunging the citizens into darkness - a darkness that increasingly has large things moving in it... 

Unfortunately, what follows all too often feels like the characters themselves are scurrying around in the dark as the two teens at the story's heart try to piece together what's going on when the audience already pretty much knows it.

They are trapped in a dying city, they have to get out - get on with it! 

It's not all bad news, especially whenever Bill Murray (playing the fat and somewhat suspicious Mayor) is on screen, but there is just a little too much mystery solving and not enough exploring to make City Of Ember truly enjoyable. 

There is one very nice touch right at the film's end that (almost) redeems the flat patches.

That said - if the whole film was that smart, City of Ember would be a classic instead of just a halfway decent holiday time-waster.

3 out of 5