Draw your own conclusions… CITY OF EMBER

Listen to the radio: The residents of Ember would have been better off if they had built their city on rock n’ roll. Instead, the 200-year-old subterranean burg is powered by a generator on last legs shakier than Michael J. Fox‘s doing the jitterbug. (He would have danced the mamba had Marconi played.) Now, the city is experiencing blackouts more frequently than Seth “Shifty” Binzer. Yes, it’s crazy town. And it’s up to two kids (Harry Treadaway and ATONEMENT‘s Saoirse Ronan) to find an escape route back to Earth’s post-apocalyptic(?) surface before Ember’s entire infrastructure implodes.

Directed by Gil (MONSTER HOUSE) Kenan, CITY OF EMBER boasts smashing production design — steampunk meets Disney’s sewers — and a smart, if under-utilized cast. (Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Toby Jones and Marianne Jean-Baptiste make good impressions in their short screen stints.) The movie has some surprising moments — the giant, star-nosed mole is frightfully inspired — but fewer than desired. This paucity of shocks and twists, in conjunction with the absence of a true villain, keep Caroline (EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) Thompson‘s adaptation of the first book of Jeanne Duprau‘s mysterious epic from being a kids’ cinema classic, yet CITY OF EMBER entertains while providing teachable moments from the pages of the original.

Perhaps Kenan shot more than met our eyes. If so, a director’s cut would be welcome unlike so many other rehashed re-releases. If not, do they call him irresponsible? Who wrote those additional characters off the page?

What do you think? Have you seen CITY OF EMBER? Have you read Duprau’s series? Don’t you remember? Draw your own conclusions and share them here, please.