BEFORE: It seems I've been given a schedule reprieve, I don't start working at the movie theater until next Friday, so I can get some more movies watched before I encounter a time crunch. There's a lot of paperwork to fill out for a new job, and pay periods start on certain dates, plus I have to watch some training videos, so I guess employers don't just hand you a broom any more and tell you to start sweeping, there are steps. So maybe I can squeeze in an extra movie this weekend at home, because I've no got another week before my life gets any crazier.
Bill Murray carries over from "The Limits of Control".
THE PLOT: For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights - but Ember's once-powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker.
AFTER: We're dealing with an underground city today, which I think is asking a lot of me, to believe in this type of story. OK, so some kind of environmental disaster forced humanity (or whatever was left of it) underground, I can get behind that. But, what kind of disaster? And how urgent was the threat, because how long did it take to dig a giant hole and build the city? OK, maybe the builders found a natural cavern that was already there, but then how long did it take to FIND that? Meanwhile, humans are dying outside for whatever reason while somebody finds the cave, makes sure it's structurally sound and then builds all the machinery needed to keep the city going? It's getting harder and harder to believe this, the more I think about it.
Plus, if this is far in the future, then maybe I could get around some of these logistic issues, because there could be tech not yet invented that could make some of this easier. But the tech here all looks outdated in the future, it's all pipe-based plumbing and hydraulics and stuff, and you'd think by then (whenever "then" is) that better stuff would have been invented. They still have audio tape in the future? Duct tape, sure, but audio tape? Why isn't everything digital? This is like some weird opposite of steam-punk, which puts semi-modern tech back into Victorian times, this is putting our current tech into the future - I'm surprised people aren't watching old movies on VHS and riding bicycles or skateboards around this underground city.
Instead, there are foot messengers who relay information around - and Lina Mayfleet becomes a messenger on Assignment Day, which is when everybody gets their very random job on a little piece of paper (again, old tech). Actually, she's assigned to the Pipeworks, but future love interest Doon trades jobs with her so he can figure out what's going wrong with the city's generator. Sure, if you want to figure out what's wrong with the electricity, get a job working with the plumbing - that doesn't really make much sense. I thought he would then trade the Pipeworks job with that other guy who got the electrical job, but no, that would have been too easy, I guess.
When Doon gets to the Pipeworks, he finds out that his boss, who's been there forever, is just patching up leaks, there's no new pipe to replace the old pipe. Also, his boss only knows barely enough to do his job passably, it's almost like assigning jobs at random to citizens is a very bad idea. Seriously, this is how they run their city, they just put jobs in a hat? It's the worst possible combination of needing to fulfill certain posts combined with not retaining any semblance of free will or the free market. Money is still a thing, why can't the most necessary jobs pay the most, which would ensure that people apply for them? Having been through the job search thing for the last six months, I know it's a delicate balance between hourly rate, time devoted to a job, and how many other people are applying for that same position. Nah, screw it, let's just put scraps of paper into a Sorting Hat and fill every job randomly. That'll do.
What's worse is that the government of Ember has fallen into idle hands, the latest Mayor is corrupt, and only looks out for himself via a secret stash of food that's kept from the general populace - me, I wouldn't eat 200-year-old canned food, but hey, go for it if you want, it's all relative compared to tiny potatoes grown without sunlight, I guess. The mayor is supposed to be safeguarding a time-capsule box with instructions for returning to the surface, once the environmental (or viral, or alien?) threat is over. But a past mayor died suddenly without handing over the box or the instructions to his successor. (You had ONE job...). So it may be time to leave Ember, only nobody knows it.
This is going to bug me, too - how come nobody down below knows that people once lived above ground? Sure, it's been a couple centuries, but don't people talk to each other any more? Didn't the first generation to become mole people tell stories to their children? Humans should still know how to write stuff down, even if they no longer gossip. Also, what genius decided that the secrets of humanity's past should be placed in a sealed box that will only open at a certain time, with instructions on how to get things back to normal? What a terrible plan - but again, with oral histories and people passing on information to each other, it shouldn't have even been necessary to have this giant puzzle that only two youngsters bucking the system can solve.
There's also this thing called the human spirit, we've never been satisfied where we are, with what we have. People have spread out across the globe, partially due to necessity but also due to curiosity - what's over that mountain, what if there's a better life on the other side of that river, or that ocean. How far can we go? And now it's even "What's on other planets, and how do we get there?" So for me to believe that all these people, for 200 years, wouldn't be going stir crazy and trying to figure out what lies beyond the darkness on the edge of town, I'm just not buying that.
I think this was based on a young adult novel, but that's no excuse for plotholes. Like here's a NITPICK POINT, water flows downhill, so how do our heroes get from Ember to the surface via an underground river. (More to the point, how is there an underground river, where does the water keep going, there's only so much DOWN the water can go...the Earth isn't some kind of bottomless sponge for water, right?). OK, maybe if Ember were located inside, say, a mountain, then there could be a river that takes them out to the plains, but as we see near the end, that just isn't the case. So somehow they took the river UP - sorry, doesn't work.
Also starring Saoirse Ronan (last seen in "The Seagull"), Harry Treadaway (last seen in "Cockneys vs. Zombies"), Tim Robbins (last seen in "Life of Crime"), Martin Landau (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Toby Jones (last seen in "The Last Thing He Wanted"), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (last seen in "Peter Rabbit"), Liz Smith (last seen in "Oliver Twist"), Amy Quinn, Catherine Quinn, Mary Kay Place (last seen in "I'll See You in My Dreams"), Mackenzie Crook (last seen in "Christopher Robin"), Lucinda Dryzek, Matt Jessup (last seen in "All Is True"), Simon Kunz (last seen in "The Current War: Director's Cut"), Ian McElhinney (last seen in "Leap Year"), David Ryall (last seen in "The Elephant Man"), Frankie McCafferty (last seen in "Angela's Ashes"), Ann Queensberry (last seen in "Smilla's Sense of Snow"), Heathcote Williams (last seen in "The Reckoning").
RATING: 4 out of 10 red ponchos
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