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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
** out of five
What a waste of potential.
There’s so much going for City of Ember – a talented cast, an evocative score, fantastic world-building, and some of the most gorgeous set design in recent memory – that its faults become even more frustrating than they already are. Running a scant 95 minutes, huge chunks of exposition and setup and most importantly, character development, feel like they were excised before the film went into general distribution. If any movie ever cried out for a director’s cut, City of Ember is it.
Ember itself is an underground colony created by the mysterious Builders some two-centuries-and-change prior, as Earth has become uninhabitable for reasons never quite explained. Run entirely by a massive generator, Ember is designed to last those two centuries, at which time a silver box handed down from city mayor to city mayor will open and reveal instructions for the citizens to escape from their dying home.
The problem is that the box went missing long ago, and now the generator’s power is flickering for ever-longer periods of time. The task of saving Ember, then, falls to teenagers Doon (Harry Treadaway) and Lina (Saoirse Ronan): the former with plans to fix the generator, and the latter with a few secrets of her own.
Visually, City of Ember is stunning. The city is a weary, labyrinthine construct of pipes and cobblestones and once-glorious buildings that have fallen to disrepair: it’s a retro-futuristic, almost-but-not-quite steampunk metropolis, and it’s a joy to behold. Ember fairly hums with possibility and intrigue.
But it seems that so much attention was paid in bringing the city to life that the rest of the story was neglected. Ember is so vivid and alive that it’s a shame to see it peopled by paper dolls who feel less like organic creations and more like automatons who will help drive the plot. Ronan and Treadaway are credible actors, but there isn’t much characterization for them to work with. Many of the adult actors – Bill Murray as a corrupt, apathetic mayor; Tim Robbins as Doon’s father; Martin Landau as a narcoleptic pipeworks laborer – are drawn in such broad strokes that they’re little more than caricatures. Most loathsome is the casting of Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the only woman of color – save two extras in a crowd scene – in Ember. She’s written in such a way as to be a step above the “mammy” characters of the 1930s, and it’s downright offensive.
Too often, the plot, like Ember itself, shows its wear. Subplots are introduced, but abruptly dropped and then never addressed again. Certain happenings seem to be designed to inject action or excitement into the plot, but don’t stand up to the slightest logical scrutiny. Plot holes and inconsistencies abound; and the entire third act of the film is buoyed by a series of occurrences so ludicrous that it’s hard not to suffer second-hand embarrassment for all involved.
In Jeanne DuPrau’s novel on which the film is based, a two-page introduction lays out the framework of the story far more clearly than the first ten minutes of the film. It’s rather depressing, in a way: in the transition from book to movie, just how much was lost?
City of Ember runs 95 minutes and is rated PG for mild peril and some thematic elements. Viewed at Southpark 16.
ereel@villagepublishing.com | 751-0421
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