'City of Ember': Post-apocalyptic fantasy

'On the day the world ended, the future of mankind was carried in a small metal box . . ." So goes the voice-over (of Tim Robbins) at the start of

City of Ember

, a post-apocalyptic parable based on Jeanne Duprau's children's novel and brought to the screen with a nifty visual inventiveness by

Monster House

director Gil Kenan.

The box in question had been handed down from mayor to mayor for more than 100 years. But then, somewhere along the line the job was bungled, and the box - battered, mysterious - ended up in the back of a closet. Forgotten.

Now, as the underground city - built in the wake of an unspoken global cataclysm - sinks into dangerous disrepair, its days numbered, a young girl has discovered said box. Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan) doesn't know that she's holding her own future, and the future of Ember's fashionably ragtag populace, in her hands, but she does know something's up.

Much care has gone into the look of City of Ember. The city, with its cobbled maze of streets and squares and its patched-up infrastructure, exudes a magical, albeit crumbling, charm. The people wear woolly, hippie-esque garb, and the machinery that keeps everything (sort of) running has a rusted, Rube Goldberg kookiness to it.

With elements of Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Marc Caro's and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's City of Lost Children, Kenan's film, then, looks wonderful. City of Ember's titular star feels like a real "character," much as the house in his animated Monster House creaked and quaked with life.

Alas, City of Ember's human denizens are less fully formed. Ronan - the tragic tattletale of Atonement - holds the camera, and her eyes are amazing, but there's not much for audiences to hang their emotions on. Lina has about as much depth and distinctiveness as a videogame hero. Ditto for Harry Treadwell, who plays Lina's teenage friend Doon Harrow.

Ditto for most everybody, actually: Martin Landau as an old, somnambulant waterworks engineer; Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a kindly gardener; Mary Kay Place as a fussy neighbor; and Robbins as Doon's dad, an idealistic radical in his youth, now weary with resignation and dashed dreams.

And then there's Bill Murray, who plays Ember's current mayor, Cole, and a corrupt, deceptive old soul is he. It's fun to watch the wily, sardonic Murray at work - stuffing his face with a secret cache of rationed sardines, his gut sticking out like a pregnant woman's, spouting a politician's string of upbeat cliches.

The despair of aging, and the hope of youth, are themes here, but Kenan never gets heavy-handed about it, and City of Ember has flashes of real energy and enchantment.

But more often, all the running, the hiding, the escaping (from giant moles, from giant Murray) are decidedly less exciting, and compelling, than City of Ember wants to be.

Directed by Gil Kenan, from the novel by Jeanne Duprau. With Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Martin Landau and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox/Walden Media.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 mins.

Parent's guide: PG (children in jeopardy, adventure, adult themes)

Playing at: area theatersEndText