Author: Dan Stalcup

A largely-forgotten adaptation of a largely-forgotten YA tetralogy, City of Ember has nearly enough breathtaking production values to make up for its avalanche of cliches and crummy pacing.

The Rescuers is, visually, the moodiest piece ever released by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Almost the entire film takes place at night in dingy buildings and murky swamps. The flashes of color all feel like subdued flickers, with no individual moment capable of escaping the thick, gloomy mood. Even the character designs feel a bit faded and smudgy. It’s simply not very fun. This aesthetic the reason I hated this movie as a kid, though it’s grown on me as an adult as I have more of an appetite for less expressive, feel-good moods.

What a treacherous task to adapt a generation-defining novel: You risk alienating fans of the book if you deviate too much, boring neophytes if you bring too much slavish devotion to the source. And it becomes more perilous if you take on an epistolary or diaristic novel, a distinctly literary form that leans on subjectivity and unreliable narrators tough to capture in film.