City of Ember (PG)
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This is based on a book which I haven't read. Um... I wasn't sure what category to put my review in. At first I was thinking "fantasy," as it does sort of have that feel, but not exactly. Actually it's closer to science fiction, in a way... even though it's set in the future, it feels more like the past. I also thought about "action/adventure," which fits... but, meh. Ultimately I decided to go with "family films." But I later moved it to "post-apocalyptic films."

Anyway, at some point in our own future, I guess, the world was ending for some unexplained reason. Basically, the world was about to become uninhabitable. So a group of scientists and architects and such build an underground city called Ember, in which people could survive. They entrusted a case to the first Mayor of Ember, which was set to open automatically after 200 years, at which point the Builders expected the surface to once again be habitable. For generations, the case was passed down from mayor to mayor, until, apparently, the seventh mayor died unexpectedly, and was unable to pass the case on to his successor. The case was then tucked away somewhere and forgotten. I guess that was 47 years before the case would have opened, and I'm not sure how long after it eventually did open, unnoticed by anyone, that the movie is actually set. Certainly, no one had any idea what the case contained, nor did anyone know there was anything beyond Ember but darkness. But now, the generator that powers the city is breaking down, and no one knows how to fix it. So there are frequent blackouts, and their duration is getting longer. Also, the city is running low on food.

Anyway, there are two main characters in the movie, a couple of teenagers named Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon Harrow. The movie begins on "Assignment Day," in which students draw slips of paper from a bag to find out what their careers will be. Doon hopes to get a job which would give him access to the generator, so that perhaps he could figure out what's wrong with it. But he draws the job of "messenger." His friend Lina draws "pipeworks laborer," so they end up trading. She's quite eager to be a messenger, and the pipeworks provide Doon access to the area where the generator is, though it's behind a locked door, so he can't actually get to it. Meanwhile, Lina finds an old box that her grandmother had been looking for, though she didn't remember what was important about it. (They had the box in their home because they were descended from the 7th mayor.) Inside is some tattered paper, which Lina pieces together, though there are still bits missing, so it's not entirely clear what it means. However, she eventually realizes it's instructions for escaping from Ember, which had been left by the Builders. So, she and Doon (along with Lina's little sister Poppy) attempt to find the exit, even though it's illegal to venture beyond the bounds of the city. For other reasons that I won't go into, they wind up at odds with the current mayor. And there's a subplot about how, apparently, both Doon and Lina's fathers had tried to find the way out of Ember at some point in the past, and Lina's father had died in the attempt. (This is never fully explained, though I would assume they had read the contents of the case themselves. Anyway, the work they'd done clearly made things easier for Lina and Doon, now.)

I don't really know what else to say, except to mention that there are giant insects and a giant mole. The reason these creatures are so big now isn't explained, though Doon wonders about it at one point, looking at pictures of them in an old book, where they were much smaller. I would imagine it's because of nuclear radiation from a war that made the surface uninhabitable in the first place, though it's hard for me to believe 200 years would be enough time to clear away that level of radiation. But whatever, it's not important. Anyway, it's not a great movie, but I liked it well enough. It was reasonably fun, I guess. And the main characters were likable enough, especially Lina.