A fun and moving family film with a subtly dark feel rarely seen in kids' movies since the '80s,
City of Ember succeeds despite its shortcomings, not only because of its fun and inspiring story, but because most of its flaws are things kids won't notice anyway. It opens with a glimpse of the titular city's birth several generations earlier, when the men who created it -- henceforth affectionately known as The Builders -- are constructing the town many miles below the earth, essentially as a vast fallout shelter. Hoping to preserve a thriving populace for roughly as long as it would take to wait out the effects of an impending unnamed (but presumably war-relate...
Released:
2008
Rated:
PG
Length:
95 mins