Release Date: 6/16/2009 Original Release: Rating: (Not rated) Rating Reason: (Reason unavailable) UPC: 024543563396 Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainm
The lights are going out in the City of Ember, a time-limited underground haven created some 200 years ago by the higher-ups of humanity in a world on the brink of disaster. Meanwhile, many of its literally and figuratively in-the-dark citizens don't suspect a thing. The only wise ones are two plucky teenagers (Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway) who are devoted to finding--with or without the help of the cagey Mayor Cole (Bill Murray)--the exit from Ember. Screenwriting credit for CITY OF EMBER, a refreshing fantasy film based on the first novel in author Jeanne DuPrau's sci-fi/adventure series for young adults, belongs to none other than Caroline Thompson. She's a silver screen veteran of family-friendly otherworldliness who's collaborated on many of Tim Burton's most definitive projects, and indeed she's brought to this live-action sophomore effort from enthusiastic movie-geek director Gil Kenan (MONSTER HOUSE) a miniaturist sensibility reminiscent of the condensed and simply plotted eccentricity of CORPSE BRIDE and A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS. In stark contrast to some of the more epically turgid fantasy films released in the wake of Harry Potter's first outing, EMBER harks back to the modestly scaled ethos of cinematic spectacle typically embodied by the whimsical adventure movies made for children in the 1980s. When the film's farfetched premise meets its unadorned storytelling to unfold in a neatly contained, nearly real-time episode, it renders the image of ordinary children traversing an architectural phantasmagoria with the kind of paradoxical patina of fluffy-yet-provocative fantasy that can stimulate the imaginations of both kids and adults. The movie's neon-filamented aesthetic, a post-apocalyptic pastiche of industrialization, is sometimes evocative of German expressionism. Still, including cinematographer Xavier Perez Grobiet's kinetic tracking shots, Kenan's film is not without its 21st-century elements.
DVD Features
Region 1 NTSC Keep Case Dual Side Full Frame - 1.33 Widescreen - 2.35 Audio: Dolby Surround - French, Spanish Dolby Surround 5.1 - English Subtitles - English, Spanish - Optional Disc 1/Side A: CITY OF EMBER Full Frame - 1.33 Additional Release Material: Trailers: 1. Forced Trailers: IGOR, MARLEY AND ME, DOCTOR DOLITTLE: A TINSEL TOWN TALE 2. Trailer Farm: LABOU, ANGEL WARS MESSENGERS, GARFIELD PET FORCE Disc 1/Side B: CITY OF EMBER Widescreen - 2.35
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Strangely, CITY OF EMBER has no good moral message and is a trifle of a story and yet, perhaps due to the performances, perhaps due to the excellent art direction (but it does have sucky CGI), the... Read the whole review at MatchFlick
Posted on October 13, 2008
Reviewed by: Jarrod
The people who live in the 'City of Ember' are survivors of some catastrophe that made the earth uninhabitable, and wiped out most of humanity, though a few folks escaped and set up an underground... Read the whole review at MatchFlick
Posted on October 13, 2008
