I am very excited about this movie. It suffers from some of the things so common in fantasy films: Simplified storyline, too many things fall into place for the characters, generally directed at children when it doesn't need to be to include them. That being said, unlike most of the Fantasies in the past few years, these traits do not ruin the movie. The star actors do a great job, the story premise is interesting and relevant to today's world, and above all THE SETS AND COSTUMES ARE F-ING AMAZING! Finally a director has come who is over the whole CG dazzle and understands that CG has it's place but that it should be reserved for things that you couldn't otherwise do. Yes, this movie includes CG, but wherever it can it steers away from it. Interview with Gil Kenan on cinematical.com Kenan says "I'm not really impressed by special effects. I feel like I grew up in a generation where -- I knew how a blue screen worked when I was a five-year-old, and growing up with magazines like Cinefex around, there's no illusion to it. It's much more interesting to me to tell a story in a primitive way. That gives me the excitement that another generation of filmmakers has had of pushing the technological envelope -- I feel like it's a backlash to that stuff. And I feel like it's important to balance. There's a lot of fancy digital effects in the film, but they were used when the effect could only be created digitally, when there was no way to do something practical."<br /><br />This is a crucial attitude in the advancement of quality fantasy and sci-fi films. For years now we've been plagued with things like "episode" 1-3 of Star Wars, or worse, the CG animated re-edit special edition of the original Star Wars trilogy. UGH!<br /><br />Anyway, City of Ember brings back great costuming and set design aesthetic and is a huge step int he right direction for the future of fantasy and sci-fi film. And of course, it's engaging, enjoyable, and cool. Even if a little too childish / badly written to go down in history as one of the greats.<br /><br />Being his second film since the short animation that got Gil Kenan his career, and being such a step up from that, I am hugely excited to see what this fledgling director will be coming out with next.<br /><br />Read more of my reviews and other things at afoxdrinksblood.livejournal.com