Review: City of Ember - 'Cinder-Hellish'

Pardon my French, but exactly when did movies aimed primarily at family audiences become so goddamned complicated? Back in my day, family movies generally contained one simple and easy-to-understand premise or gimmick--a place-kicking mule, a Volkswagen with a mind and heart of its own, a local government official who occasionally found himself transformed into a sheepdog and chased through roller rinks by the likes of Tim Conway and JoAnne Worley--and we were happy with that. (Okay, maybe we weren’t exactly “happy” in the classic sense of the word, but we were at least more or less content.) Nowadays, it seems as if every kid-oriented story hitting the multiplex these days comes along chock-full of clever puzzles, tricky riddles and elaborately detailed backstories of the kind that used to only be seen in old Russian novels.... [read full story]