Great ambition, but poor execution. If you're going to watch it, skip to the scenes with Bill Murray and ignore the rest.

Somewhat entertaining but lacks a decent story, pace and screenplay. Everything develops just way too slowly to become attractive. The characters are far from involving and some aspects of the story are boring and stupid rather than fun. Not the bast acting and a horrible and clichéd ending. One to watch and forget actually.

Really not too bad for a children's adventure movie. A nice little dystopian storyline that, yes, had some plot holes but wasn't anything too movie ruining. Visually the movie was really cool and the acting deserves to be mentioned. It's nice to see two young people who aren't horrible actors (Saoirse Ronan and Harry Treadaway). Also you can't really go wrong with Murray, Robbins and Landau (even though every one felt slightly underused).

"Ember is a superbly crafted environment, recalling not only the dreamlike nocturnal landscape of City of Lost Children but also the self-contained, sub-aquatic art-deco setting of last year's superlative videogame Bioshock." - Nick Schager

Saoirse Ronan is so lovely

A gorgeous looking film with some brilliant art direction. Unfortunately though, the story was a little lacking, and that sad fact prevented it from being anything truly spectacular. Good news is, the ending is awesome!

I don't understand all the hate for this film. This was basically Fallout: The Movie, and I loved it. All the dialogue problems that people are talking about...I just didn't hear it.

Really enjoyed the costume and set design, but the story itself was predictable and the screenwriter made the horrible decision to make sure that the characters do that annoying thing where they address what is currently happening on screen, creating an unnatural form of dialogue. I supposed they did this "for kids," but really, it's just to make up for where the script falls short in its storytelling.

I enjoyed this a bunch in the theaters. That said I doubt I would ever watch it again unless it just happened to be on in a place that I also happened to be.

Liking it a lot more because I've fallen in love with Saoirse Ronan. Otherwise it's a pretty decent kids movie with not a whole lot of adult substance in it. It sounds familiar to all the crappy book they made us read in the 5th grade, which I guess gets the point across, being based on a book, right?

Forgettable adventure movie for kids or insanely retarded adults. The kids don't irritate, which is much appreciated, and overall the film doesn't do that much wrong. On the other hand the universe they try to set up is ridiculously inconsistent, the builder's plan being extremely complicated. I guess what I'm telling you is, that it doesn't do that much right either.

Great book, bad movie

n terms of translating The City of Ember from print to film, director Gil Kenan didn't do a terrible job. The portrayal of the city certainly could have been improved upon, but the important characters were all there, and stayed consistent with the novel. Unfortunately, the film failed to grasp the concept of intrigue that the book had; I didn't really care if I saw what happened next, unlike the book where I always wanted to see what would happen to Lina and Doon.

Tried to fit 2 1/2 hours of story into 90 minutes of film, resulting in some akward jumps, and some convenient "all magically comes together" moments. The movie is beautiful, though. Murray did not seem that inspired in his role.