Yet another excursion into a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world marked by bleak cityscapes, grimy machinery, and men in lumpy wool-knit sweaters, filmmaker Gil Kenan's City of Ember—based on the YA novel by Jeanne Duprau—boasts a markedly eerie atmosphere that helps offset its confusing yet still pedestrian storyline. Following, to quote R.E.M., the end of the world as we know it (we never learn the exact how or why of civilization's demise), the remnants of humanity are driven underground to survive as best they can. Resourceful inventor Loris Harrow (Tim Robbins) and his teenage son Doon (Harry Treadaway) fare better than most until the latter is assigned by the all-powerful Mayor (an oddly cast Bill Murray) to a menial job that will separate the pair. Doon swaps jobs with a female classmate, Lina (Saoirse Ronan), whose grandma just happens to have in her closet a boxlike metal device that offers answers to long-asked questions. Complications pile atop each other in swift succession after the discovery of the box, but the emphasis is on action and suspense in this kiddie adventure focused on the youthful protagonists (viewers may recall the Oscar-nominated Ronan as the younger sister in Atonement). A strong optional purchase. (E. Hulse)
City of Ember
Fox, 123 min., PG, DVD: $29.99, Jan. 20 Volume 24, Issue 1
City of Ember
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