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City of Ember

City of Ember (2008)

October. 07,2008
|
6.4
|
PG
| Adventure Fantasy Family

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers, in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, before the the lights go out forever.

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Cortechba
2008/10/07

Overrated

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Teringer
2008/10/08

An Exercise In Nonsense

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Hayden Kane
2008/10/09

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

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Jonah Abbott
2008/10/10

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

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Mikelikesnotlikes
2008/10/11

The sets are beautiful and the acting is very good (I am very critical of child/teen actors in general but the main characters were great fits for their roles). The movie is slightly cartoonish in the exaggerated stereo-types shown. The world they inhabit is simplistic and the people are mostly friendly and helpful to each other. It is not a dark movie despite the ominous feelings of doom approaching. The lead up is rushed and I'm not sure if really young viewers would get the gist of what's going on. The rest of the story-line is easy to follow and interesting enough to engage all age groups. Some of the action sequences didn't make a lot of sense which I forgave. I just let logic go at some point near the end and enjoyed the experience.The giant mutated animals had no explanation, and didn't progress the story-line at all. I'm pretty sure they could have been dispensed with. I also thought the escape route wouldn't be the most efficient way to evacuate an entire population.Forget that stuff if you can and you'll enjoy the ride.

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Meiliana Kartaatmadja
2008/10/12

I kinda like the the trailer, okay, but trust me, this movie is not worth it to watch for. You will just waste your precious hour. I kinda a bit regret it.At first, i think the story is quite interesting and unique. Let say, 15 minutes at the beginning you will feel like... oh wow, it's an interesting concept. 30 minutes later, you would say..err okay, so what's next? ( the story kind of left many plot holes especially since i do not read the book so like hell i will know what happen. There are too many things left unexplained, come from out of nowhere, or just left out-untouched ). Then you will start to wonder and doubt yourself, should you stop watching it or just continue it. I decided to continue it, since i still expect things would turn out to be better. It was a false hope. The development of the story itself and the character, were so poor. Everything seemed so rush and the ending was so horrible.

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lyy1992
2008/10/13

I didn't read the novel before, but I did tried to watch it. I read the comments before, I still made myself to enjoy the movie. People will probably watch it for once, but not for twice or more. Overall, the movie is fresh at first. The movie has a good start, people are living underground for 200 years, they didn't tell the reason why should they do that anyway, but I guess that's because of nuke crisis (because some creatures appeared in the movie seemed mutated).At the middle of the movie, things get not as good as the starting point. The story is fresh, but is too easy to be expected. The part of mechanism to escape from city of Ember is designed so well that most of the part at the end of the movie is watching how the escape mechanism works. Well some part did make me laugh, and that's it. Watching and see how smart the historical engineers designed the escape mechanism.The movie did deliver implicit message. Objectively, everyone has different point of view about this. That means not everyone can get the main point of the movie. Maybe it is made for the novel reader, or made for fresh audience, or people of strong religion. Well I'm not going to say what I think about the message, you may conclude it by yourself. All I want to say is, I'm not feeling anything after I watched the movie, neither getting emotional nor enlightened. I said to myself "Well, that's it, this is how the movie ended." kind of conclusion, leaving some questions for myself :"What did I gained after I sat in front of the movie for 90 minutes? What is the movie tried to deliver to the audience?", hope you get it.Anyhow, City of Ember is worth to be watched at least once, since the story is fresh. It may be a disappointment for the novel lover, but it can entertain the newbie at least.

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Leofwine_draca
2008/10/14

CITY OF EMBER spends a whole lot of time creating a post-apocalyptic future, where survivors live in a huge cavern filled with steam-punk style technology. Sadly, that's the limit of the imagination, because the film's narrative is virtually non-existent. You can't make a movie with a good setting alone, and the flaws are all too apparent once you begin watching.Attempts to make Bill Murray's comedy mayor into some kind of villain are undone from the outset by Murray's comic acting, while further attempts to bring gravitas via the casting of experienced actors like Tim Robbins and Toby Jones are similarly misplaced. The central plot, about the two kids searching for a way out, is dull beyond belief, and sleep-inducing. There's absolutely nothing new here.My only comments are that Saoirse Ronan is a very poor and overrated actress, limited to a single expression for a great deal of the time, and that the film's sole saving grace is the presence of old-timer Martin Landau, who is by far the best thing in it.

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