Lina city of ember11/16/2023 The end, by the way, is satisfying, even beautifully rendered. Yes, there are twists and turns, but there aren't huge lapses in logic, at least nothing to dissuade you from staying through to the end. City of Ember is pretty fascinating and not complex, meaning it'll grab you (and, more importantly, teens and younger) and not force you to figure things out in order to keep up with the plot. But apparently the first generationers vowed never to speak of their upper lives again, or something. So it's not tough to imagine the tales of the outside world being orally handed down from generation to generation, tales of Super Bowls, Shakespeare, Sex and the City, and Snoopy. That means approximately nine generations after the ones who first lived there, and in often there are three generations alive at any given time. They haven't been down there for 2000 years, just 200. Attempting to leave the city is a jailable offense, okay, but these people don't even know there's something to escape to. I don't mean that they don't know what's on it they don't even know there IS a surface. Then there's the fact that everyone seems clueless about the surface. Sure, they have a lot of canned goods, but something tells me they'd be in poor health after a lifetime of poor eating habits. Now, bear in mind that these people have been down there for two centuries. We see various businesses and transportation, but there's apparently no police, no cemeteries, no fresh fruit. The lapses in logic take some willful ignorance to, well, ignore. Often, this sort of approach makes for a hammy performance, but Murray's too subtle here for pure hamminess he's more like a square peg in a round hole. The only puzzling casting is that of Murray as the town's jovial mayor he seems glib and cheerful enough, but it almost feels like he's being ironic, rather than being a part of the story. Robbins is excellent in a small, but pivotal role, as is Martin Landau (whatever became of him?) as the requisite old-guy-who-sort-of-knows-stuff. For the most part, the casting is on target Ronan seems a lot more engaging and appealing here than she did just last year in Atonement, and Treadway, although looking like a refugee from High School Musical, is just as impressive. Naturally, they run into complications with Doon's father (Tim Robbins) and the current mayor (Bill Murray), and just as naturally they're eventually pursued by people who'd just as soon no one ever figured out how to leave the dark city. During the course of their duties, as the blackouts increase, each learns about the mysterious silver box, and they team up to decipher the tattered remnants of the exit instructions. At the movie's outset, each has received his and her assigned job for life - Lina as a messenger (all verbal), and Doon working in the pipeworks, where he hopes to find a way to save the generator. Our story focuses on two children, Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon Harrow (Harry Treadway). So here we are, 200 years down the road, and the lights in Ember flicker occasionally, sometimes more than occasionally, and it's apparent to a few that the generator's days are numbered. But, as might be expected, the chain broke somewhere along the way, and at present the box sits in a closet, its owner unknowing of its raison d'etre. This box was then handed off from mayor to mayor for nearly 200 years. This information was placed inside a metal box and alarmed with a 200-year timer by the end of that time, the Builders reasoned, the surface would be habitable. The Builders, though, possess some forethought and, assuming that someday the surface will again be inhabitable, they enclosed specific instructions for the citizens of Ember to eventually escape to the sunlight. Some 200 years ago, life on Earth was dying, and in its waning moments great physicists, inventors, and architects designed and built a huge underground city powered by a gigantic generator. The movie does deliver some intrigue and some compelling performances (not to mention some mailed-in ones), but huge lapses in logic that might be detected even by the youngest audience member prevent it from being the heart-stopping classic it wants to be. At first blush, City of Ember seems like it would be a thrilling sci-fi adventure, a page out of Jules Verne's playbook, but ultimately it fails to completely scale the dizzying heights of its creative premise.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |