City of Ember Jeanne DuPrau

Another childhood disappointment. I remember in fourth grade when everyone was reading these books, and I remember getting excited for the movie. And then the  movie turned out not only bad, but weird. First, the actors. While the twelve year old character Lina was played by a fourteen year old (reasonable) the twelve year old Doon was played by a twentyfour year old. Yes, that is correct. Harry Treadaway was born in 1984, making him twentyfour when the 2008 movie came out. A pre-teen was played by an adult. Without any aging up of the character. They hired leads that were ten years apart in age to play twelve year olds.
Then there’s the added thrills of giant animas. Were they in the book? No. Should they be in the movie? No. Was any explanation as to why all the animals were giant? No. So what's the purpose of including them? Tension? Drama? To fill up time? If you can’t make a story about people escaping a dying city interesting without having to add weird killer moles to create action, something is terribly wrong. Actually, the script in general had some questionable lines, The actors themselves worked well with what they were given, but when you have lines like “There’s more to a bottle cap than keeping liquid from leaking out of glass”, it’s difficult. Like, what is that even a metaphor for???
But, anyway... parts of the plot were changed for no reason, creating some minor plotholes, some of the escape route was changed, making it a very dangerous escape route, and one of my favorite parts of the book was left out. Early in the book there was a scene where Lina, who likes to draw, ran out of black colored pencils. Instead she uses one of her rarely utilized pencils to color in the sky. Blue. And then she thought to herself that it would be strange to have a blue sky. A simple scene, but for some reason it has always stuck with me over the years. Overall, the movie was a disappointment for fans of the books, but not bad for a movie, even if it was a little weird.