City of Ember (2008)

★★½

I was disappointed by this movie in so many ways.

First, I will say that I liked the look of Ember in the movie even more than how I had pictured it to look in my mind's eye. I also liked the casting for Lina a lot.

And now for the things I didn't like...

The movie did not do as good of a job as the book in showing how the city of Ember was falling apart. A big deal was made in the book about how Lina longed for colored pencils, but in the movie she had assorted crayons readily available.

In the book, Lina sensibly carried around just the paper on which were printed the instructions. Why did the movie have her lugging around the big box everywhere?! There was a key in the box - that wasn't in the book - but that could easily have been carried in a pocket, as the mayor had carried his.

I didn't like how Mrs. Murdo was made into a flake, and I didn't think changing Lina's father's story really added anything at all.

The enormously sized insects were just weird.

The manner of egress was may more complex than it was in the book, which made it less believable because the movie's method depended on mechanisms still working 200+ years after they were built, whereas the book's method was simple and relied only on the continued existence of the river.

My absolute favorite part of the book - the existential image conjured up when Doon and Lina looked down upon their city - was fleeting at best. The movie poster itself was misleading, as I don't recall seeing any scene in the movie in which Lina and Doon were so closely above Ember.

Even in the book, the way in which Lina and Doon passed on the instructions to the rest of the people of Ember was pretty far-fetched, and hardly a reliable method at all, but the scene in the movie was even more unbelievable.

Finally, I had high hopes that the movie would provide better closure by incorporating information provided in the second chapter of the sequel, The People of Sparks. Alas, it did not, and the movie ended in the same way as the book, e.g., with me saying, "It ends just like that?!"