Movie Review: City of Ember

My Rating:

This evening I saw the movie City of Ember at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.

The well known actors: Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Mary Kay Place, in this movie were horrible. May be that was intentional so that the young and coming actors can shine. The lead characters Harry Treadaway (Doon Harrow) and Saoirse Ronan (Lina Mayfleet) were quite good. At first I thought Treadaway was the lead, but later it turns out Ronan stole the show.

Ronan is a young 14 year old actor who only started appearing on the silver screen last year, with I Could Never Be Your Woman and was a “Best Actress in a Supporting Role” nominee at the The 80th Annual Academy Awards for her role in Atonement with Keira Knightley. I can see that Ronan is one of those actress to watch for years to come.

The plot of the movie is simple which made Ronan’s and Treadaway’s even more important. The set was low budget, and was it not for the dialogues of Caroline Thompson this story of Jeanne Duprau would have been even more dull.

Another delight was the actresses, Amy Quinn and Catherine Quinn who played the character “Poppy”. Not sure why they had to use two actresses as there was none of the usual lapse in years for the character to justify actresses of different ages. Although the Quinn did not have much of a dialogue, they were very cute and delightful. I can’t wait to see either of them in the next movie.

Unfortunately, due to the weak plot and story line, with the only salvage being the acting of the young actors, I can only grant this movie Three Penguins.