Movie Review: The City of Ember

On Thursday night, I watched The City of Ember, based on the book of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau. I have long held a love of post-apocalyptic movies which do not involve leatherdaddies and large amounts of hairspray, ever since I read John Christopher's The White Mountains and The Sword of the Spirit trilogies, or perhaps it was early exposure to Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea. I will confess, I have not read the book, which is contrary to my usual movie-watching policy.

At first, I wasn't sure the DVD was working properly, because this is the only movie I've seen with so many scenes in the pitch black that don't involve people dying horribly. The architectural geography of the actual city of Ember triggered some visual memories in me, which I could not identify until I checked the next day and realized the author was French; I had been reminded of the more nightmarish architecture of The City of Lost Children. The leads of the film were well-cast, although the dim lighting (for once justified by plot relevance) made reading their faces difficult at times. Some other reviews have faulted the film for a lack of action; while the sacrifice of certain scenes from the book appear to have reduced the action quotient, I was pleased to watch a film where the intelligence and mystery-solving sections of the book were not sacrificed for action scenes. Enough confrontations occur in the dark or dim already!

The mole and the giant mutant beetle were absurd (although moles are indeed creepy, if you look closely at them), and how everybody in these underground cities avoids rickets baffles me. I assume dwarves in fantasy books have a racial immunity. The Assignment Day, although it is common for such survivalist dystopias, seems slightly ridiculous in its system of random assignments. Lois Lowry's The Giver, which I re-read today (yes, the whole thing) in order to have some points of comparison, contains speeches that indicate careful thought on the matter of individual assignments; perhaps the book The City of Ember contains such scenes which were cut from the movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but the location of Ember is the draw, so perhaps it's not so bad that there will be no movie sequels.