City of Ember ** (2008, Harry Treadaway, Saoirse Ronan, Toby Jones, Bill Murray, Tim Robbins) – Classic Movie Review 4613

Director Gil Kenan’s stylish looking but creaky 2008 family science fiction fantasy adventure was a box office flop, although it has a good production and a strong cast of stars in Harry Treadaway, Saoirse Ronan, Toby Jones, Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Mary Kay Place, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Ryall, Martin Landau and Mackenzie Crook. It was obviously intended to be the first film in a new franchise, as Caroline Thompson’s screenplay is based on the 2003 first book in the Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau.

Harry Treadaway (from Control) and Saoirse Ronan (from Atonement) play teenagers Doon Harrow and Lina Mayfleet, who must search the City of Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city’s existence, and help the citizens to escape before their lights go out forever. Well, after all, their big fat generator is failing!

With its luminous all-star cast and the most gorgeous-looking sets, it looks like loving care and money has been splashed everywhere over this lavish and gorgeous-looking family fantasy adventure. Everywhere, that is, except on the screenplay, which unfortunately is as dull as the proverbial ditch water, at least here on screen.

Wasted with little to do in star supporting roles, Tim Robbins, as Treadaway’s dad Loris, and Bill Murray, as the film’s bad guy Mr Cole the mayor, look bored. And so, perhaps, will you be. But then, of course, the actors got paid for this.

Today’s teens, er young adults, used to dazzling, state-of-the-art  CGI visual effects, funny comedy and fast-paced action, all of which are largely missing here, probably will be as bemused as their adults by City of Ember. And certainly everybody will be struggling over the idea that its story is meant to be some kind of allegory for the state of the world, with ’ember’ a metaphor for the characters’ situation.

It cost $55 million and earned only $7,800,000 in America, with total worldwide box office of just $17.9 million. It was filmed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where a former paint hall in the shipyard of Harland and Wolff in the city’s Titanic Quarter was converted into the film’s post-apocalyptic city. CGI does satisfactorily create the film’s two non-human living creatures – a giant moth that seeks light and a giant mole that is subterranean and blind.

Murray said: ‘You can’t help but feel that this film is speaking to you right now, when you really feel a little bit lost, a little abandoned.’ Robbins said: ‘I just loved the script. It had such a good, optimistic spirit about it. It’s fun to play against this bleak, dark world.’

The City of Ember (2003) is the first book in the Ember series by American writer Jeanne DuPrau (born in 1944). The other books are The People of Sparks (2004), The Prophet of Yonwood (2006), and The Diamond of Darkhold (August 2008), the final book in the series.

London-born Gil Kenan is also known for Monster House (2006) and Poltergeist (2015).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4613

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