As the world faces its final days, chaos and despair consume humanity. Amid the turmoil, a young girl stumbles upon a hidden map with the potential to save everyone. With time running out, she must decipher its secrets and make a choice that could change the fate of mankind forever.

‘SPOILER ALERT’

The movie begins with an old guy walking down a white corridor. He then enters a room full of scientists, engineers, and architects. The world is ending, and the only way to save humanity is by building an underground city. They are building a city called Ember to save humanity from going extinct. One of the scientists puts a document and a transparent glass inside a metal box and sets it to be opened only after 200 years.

Two hundred years is enough time for people to stay in the underground city before they can go out. The box is then given to the current mayor. The mayor is supposed to pass it on to her successor, and this will go on for generations. No one knows what the box contains. But when there are 47 years remaining, the chain gets broken when the mayor who is supposed to pass it collapses. The box gets tucked away, and the countdown continues. Finally, when the moment comes and the 200 years end, it opens by itself.

In a house in the underground city, a father named Loris Harrow goes to his son Doon to tell him to hurry. Doon is getting ready and shares his worries about being assigned a bad job. As they talk, the power suddenly goes off. Loris starts counting, and when he reaches eight, the power comes back.

Doon mentions that the power outage is now the third time this week and is getting longer by the day. Loris agrees, and Doon continues, telling him that the only power sources of the place are the generators, and if they stop working, it will be the end of them too. Loris jokes about Doon’s dramaticness, but Doon tells him that the city is collapsing, and they must find a way to fix the problem they are encountering. He is determined to get into the generator to see what is wrong with it.

Later that day, the mayor of the city, Cole, walks to the stage. He congratulates the youth there for reaching their assignment day. Among the people attending is Doon. In another part of the town, a young girl, Lina, is rushing to attend this event in the Ember school. She reaches the hall and calls for her friend Lizzie, who tells her to get in. She silently enters and stands with the others.

They all gather to sing the national anthem of their city, and Mayor Cole starts passing a bag with papers with their assignments written on them. The first kid gets the Electric works and excitedly asks if he is going to work in the generator, which the mayor confirms. Lina gets pipe works, which devastates her, and Doon, unfortunately, gets messenger instead of electric works like he hoped. There were also other spots like food making, cleaning and many more. After they all pick their assignments, they get out of the hall.

Doon calls for Lina and asks her if she wants to trade because he doesn’t want to work as a messenger. Amazed, she asks if he wants to work in the pipes, but he tells her that he wants to work in electric, but Joss, the guy who got the electric works assignment, refused to exchange, so he would rather work in the pipes than be a messenger.

Hearing this, Lina gladly exchanges jobs with him and thanks him before walking away. When she reaches her home, she tells her neighbors that she is assigned as a messenger, and they are happy for her. She then goes to her grandmother and tells her the good news. She then asks where her little sister, Poppy, is and finds her in the backroom.

Meanwhile, back at their house, Loris gives Doon a gift he made for his graduation. Doon unwraps the gift and finds a device inside. He asks what the device is, but his father wants him to figure it out and simply says, “You will know.” He then starts giving him advice about focusing on things at work and that he should know every little detail. Doon, whose focus is on the fact that he lost the chance to work on the generator, shrugs off the advice and gets up to leave. Outside, Doon finds a large moth that looks injured. Doon tries to help it.

Back with Lina, she puts Poppy to sleep and tells her she will play the voices while she sleeps. She sits by a device with a pedal. The pedal powers an answering machine, and she listens to a voice message from her late father. There are several messages in the machine and they are from their father, her father’s customers. But other than her father’s and the other messages, there is one message from a man named Barrow telling him that he had thought about and seeing his son has changed his mind and wants to be in. After Poppy dozes off, Lina sits and starts to draw a blue sky in the hopes of seeing it one day.

The next morning, Lina excitedly shows up to work. She is earlier than she is supposed to be. At the same time, Doon also shows up at his own job in the pipes. Lina is given a red cloak, which is given to the messengers. Before she starts the work, she is supposed to hear the rules, but she already knows them and lists all of them. Doon is also given work attire. He is given a helmet and is told he is supposed to write his name on it because if something happens to him, that is how they are able to identify him.

Lina goes to Clary to deliver her first message. As they talk, they hear a scream from the outside and go to the window to see what is going on. It is a man who attempted to go out of the city. Everyone who gathers around him doesn’t want to approach him because they fear he might be infected with something. Police officers then show up and take the man to arrest him. Lina asks Clary why people risk going to jail just to see what is out there. Clary tells her that there is a lot to do in the city to think of the outside and advises Lina not to be too curious.

After Clary goes back to her shop, Lina finds a thing on the ground that the man had dropped. She picks it up and hides it in her coat before walking away.

Doon is working on the pipes with his boss, Sul. The pipes are old and rusty, so they have a problem. They don’t have new pipes to replace the old ones, so they just patch them when a leak happens. Sul tells Doon the last time the pipes were changed was twenty years ago. After patching a leak on the pipe, they head back to the control room. Doon asks about the tunnels and what the controllers do, but Sul doesn’t know because he is only focused on his own work. Sul dozes off to sleep, and after making sure he really is asleep, Doon takes a map and starts looking for the generator room.

There is a door that leads to the generator room, but the door is locked. Determined, he decides to look for another entrance to the generator. He keeps looking and navigates through the tunnels before he finds a door on the roof. He pulls himself up and finds himself in another room. He starts walking there, but suddenly a man grabs him and asks what he is doing there. Doon tries to diffuse the situation by telling the guy that he knows his brother, but the man doesn’t want to hear it. He throws Doon out of the room and tells him never to come back, shouting.

After he gets up from the ground, he resumes walking. Suddenly, the city goes dark. Lina, who is walking to deliver messages, gets scared and stands by a pole, waiting for the power to come back. Suddenly, Doon sees her and approaches, calling her name. She asks why it is lasting this long because the power outage never lasts for a long time. She wants him to reassure her that they will fix it and the power will be restored. He tells her that they might be able to fix it for now, but the city is collapsing and eventually the generators might stop working.

As they talk, the power is restored, and through the PA system, all the pipe workers and engineers are called for duty. Doon, hearing this, tells Lina that he has to go back to work and walks away. Lina then calls him from behind and gives him the thing she picked up earlier. She mentioned she got it from a man who comes from the unrecognized areas. She shares her theory about it being from an animal’s body. After seeing it, he tells her that it is from a beetle. He asks if he can keep it, and Lina allows him to, so he takes it with him.

As Lina is standing, a woman approaches to ask her to deliver a message, but Lina wants to go and check on her grandmother first. When she gets home, her grandmother is tearing the couch. She asks what she is doing but then hears Poppy from the other room and goes to find her eating a paper. She makes her spit it out and takes her along with a box that was open in front of Poppy. Seeing this, her grandmother tells her she was looking for that box and that it is very important. When Lina asks what it is, her grandmother forgets. Lina ignores this since she is late for work and decides to go.

Back at work, Doon approaches Joss to ask about the generator, but before he even asks, Joss tells him the generator is broken and it is useless.

Lina continues delivering her messages, and Looper, the man who threw Doon out of the room, tells her that he has a message for the mayor. The message is, “Your ship is here.” She then goes to the mayor’s office and is led by his assistant, Barton, to the mayor’s office. As she walks down the hallways, she sees portraits of the previous mayors. She tells Barton that she is related to the seventh mayor of the city. She then notices that all the mayors are holding the box she found in her house.

She gets inside the office and finds Mayor Cole getting his portrait done. She tells him he has a message from Looper, and he asks her to come closer. She whispers the message before she walks out. Lina asks what the box the other mayors are holding is, and Mayor Cole asks if it is part of the message. When she tells him no, he thanks her, indicating that her work here is done.

As she walks back to her house, she overhears Looper telling another guy that this time, it is going out for good. Lina asks what is going out for good, but Looper dismisses her, saying that he said it is coming back for good.

Doon is trying to figure out how the beetle’s size grows to this level while the pictures in the books are small. Loris tells him that what he is doing is a waste of time and to drop it before going back to his work.

Back at home, Lina picks up the box and opens it to see what is inside. She finds a paper inside, but Poppy has eaten half of it, and the things she reads don’t make sense. She then accidentally opens another compartment inside the box and finds a glass. She takes it to her friend Lizzie to ask what it is, but Lizzie doesn’t know either.

While she is there, the ground shakes, and the power goes off again. Back at home, Lina’s grandmother’s situation gets worse. She keeps screaming about something being important, but no one understands. After the check-up, Lina asks the doctor if she has any medicine that she can give to her grandmother, but the doctor is out of medicines. Lina then asks if she can check Poppy too because she coughs a lot and takes her to Poppy. The doctor examines Poppy, and while she is looking through her mouth, she finds a paper and throws it away. Lina takes the paper and tries to read it along with the other paper, but the power goes out again.

At this time, Lina gets up to check on her grandmother and walks to her room with Poppy. She calls out for their grandmother, but there is no answer. The power comes back, and when she sees her, their grandmother is dead. Without a word, she hugs Poppy, and they cry.

After her grandmother’s death, Lina and Poppy go to live with Mrs. Murdo. As they eat, Lina expresses her worries about the blackouts, and Mrs. Murdo tells her that the people who made the city will come and help them find a way out of this. Lina then sticks the pieces she has found from Poppy together. She then takes it to Doon to show it to him. After seeing this, Doon and Lina break into their school and take a history book to read.

When they open the book, Lina notices that the printing is the same with the paper she has. Realizing both the book and the paper are from the builders of the city, they keep reading but the guard comes. They take the book and get out. The guard sees the book is not there and gets shocked but the two are already gone.

As Doon tries to read the paper, he manages to find the word “exit” and realizes that there is a way out of Ember. So he decides to go back to the tunnels. In the tunnels, there is a part that is removed from Sul’s map, so they head there, but the tunnel ends at a dead end with only a locked door. He decides to try and open it and starts attempting to pick the lock. As he is doing that, two men come but drop what they are holding and run when a large creature with tentacles approaches them. Lina and Doon go to see where the sound comes from and find a can of food on the ground. Then they suddenly see the creature, and they both run for their lives. The creature pursues them, but they finally manage to escape.

After they escape, they sit to talk. Doon tells Lina that they are running out of food because the cabinets in the storeroom are all empty. As they talk, Lina sees Doon’s helmet and notices her name on it. She asks why his helmet has her name on it, and he tells her that the man who used to have this helmet died of drowning. Lina realizes that her father had died drowning and that it is his helmet.

She goes to Clary to tell her this, and Clary tries to comfort Lina, but she is too emotional. Clary tells Lina that her father used to think there was a way out of Ember because the river flows in one direction, so there must be a source and a destination. He tried to investigate, but one day the pipes exploded. The other people escaped, but her father couldn’t. Lina then tells Clary she is thinking of giving the box to the mayor, and Clary, happy with her decision, encourages her to do so.

Lina takes the box to the school to show it to the mayor. While she waits, she sees Lizzie and calls her out, but Lizzie tries to avoid her. As she rushes to walk away, she stumbles upon some kids and drops the things she is holding. Lina walks toward her to help and sees a pineapple. She asks where she got it from because it has been years since pineapples were seen in the city, but Lizzie tries to brush it off. Lina confronts her, and Lizzie tells her she got it from her boyfriend. And her boyfriend happens to be Looper.

Lina quickly tells Doon about this. She tells him Looper is sneaking food and that he is working with the mayor because of the message he sent before. They both suspect that there is something behind the door, so they go back to the tunnels. They finally break the door to the bunker and are stunned to see that the room is filled with food. They walk inside together and see the mayor sleeping after eating a lot of food.

They go back to Mrs. Murdo’s house to plan their next move in Lina’s room. As they talk, it is Poppy’s sleeping time, so Lina asks Doon to hit the pedals so that Poppy can hear their father’s voice as she sleeps. Doon starts pedaling, and suddenly he hears the message from the mysterious person and recognizes it as his dad’s voice.

Hearing this, he decides to confront his father and goes to his house. He asks Loris why he lied because he knows that Loris tried to leave the city before because of the voice message. Loris keeps trying to brush it off, saying the builders had abandoned them, but Doon tells Loris he has proof that the builders didn’t abandon them, and Loris gets interested.

Meanwhile, Lina goes to Barton and tells him about the discovery. She tells him the mayor is stealing food from the people of Ember. Barton acts shocked and encourages her to report it, but as they walk, he forcefully gets her into the mayor’s office. Inside, Barton tells the mayor that Lina accused him of stealing.

With no way out, Lina confronts him about the bunker, but the mayor acts surprised. He then notices the box in her hand and asks to see it, but Lina is not willing to give it up. The mayor orders his men to take the box, but as they approach, the power goes off. Using this opportunity, Lina steals a metal card from the mayor and runs away with the box.

At the same time, enforcers go to Doon’s house looking for him. Loris pretends to be half deaf, trying to distract the enforcers. He then takes them to a room to show them where Doon is, but it is a distraction for Doon to get away.

Lina goes to Clary, telling her that the guards are after her. Barton goes to Mrs. Murdo’s house looking for Lina, but she is not there. He presses Mrs. Murdo for more information, and she tells him Lina might be in the greenhouse because she heard her making plans with Doon. Armed with this information, Barton goes to Clary’s greenhouse and starts throwing things around to make her tell him where the kids are.

Clary repeatedly tells him that she doesn’t know where they are, but he doesn’t believe her. He gives her a warning, but Clary doesn’t flinch. Suddenly, the kids make a sound, and realizing someone is there, Barton rushes to the other room. No one is there, but he sees a shoe mark on the ground. He assumes that they escaped through the window and rushes outside.

Doon and Lina are still in the house, contemplating ways of getting away. Suddenly, they find a bicycle that Loris made. Doon tells her that the man on the answering machine is his dad and that their fathers were trying to escape. They decide to use the bicycle to leave the greenhouse, and they start pedaling, and it begins to move through the caves, which leads them to the pipe room. They stop in a wet area and cover the bicycle.

Lina then gives the metal card she stole from the mayor to Doon. When he attaches the metal card with the glass inside the box, it glows and shows the sign on the door of the generator.

Meanwhile, a celebration is going on upstairs. Lina hears them singing and decides to go back to bring Poppy. They go upstairs and manage to get her without getting noticed. They return to the pipe room, but there is no key to the generator.

Lina comes up with an idea because not everything will be obvious. She realizes that the paper she found is circular, and the floor she is standing on is the same shape and has the same symbol. She understands that the shapes on the paper are not random but a portrait of the room. She then realizes there is something behind the locker.

When they read the paper, there is an instruction that says they are supposed to rotate clockwise. They rotate the wheel as instructed, and the locker moves, leading them to the generator room. They follow it, and when they get in, there is a river and a boat.

The boat goes onto a conveyor belt, leading it into the water, but the water level is too low, and the boat gets crushed by the water wheel. Seeing this, Doon mentions that it is supposed to move out of the way, but Lina realizes that they have to follow the exact procedures in the document.

She reads it again and finds that they need to access a certain room before they go out. Doon then heads to the emergency control room. Doon combines the metal and the transparent cards and inserts them into the keyhole. The door doesn’t open at first, and he tries to force it open, but it finally does when Poppy takes the key out.

Doon tells Poppy she did good before getting inside the place. They climb a ladder and reach a control room with a place to insert the key, and when they do, the controllers light up. Using the instructions from the paper, they first set the water to one full thrust. The next step is to set it to two full thrusts, but when they do that, the machine gets stuck. The sudden pressure makes the wheels go wild, alerting everyone.

Following this, the pipe bursts, and water fills the area. Doon then sees Sul trying to fix it and rushes to him. Sul is trying to fix it, but he is failing. Doon gives Sul a small device Loris made to work with, and it works. Sul manages to crank the gears up, and it starts working. The wheels start moving, but the water begins to flood the area.

Soon, the water reaches the town and the celebration in the school. Seeing the place getting electrified, they figure something is wrong in the control room.

Doon slips from the machine, but Sul helps him up. He asks if he is okay, and Doon confirms. Back at the school, the water starts filling the area, alerting everyone. The mayor attempts to run but falls.

Back at the wheels, Doon tells Sul they must go now, but someone has to stay and keep the wheels open. Sul tells Doon to go ahead without him while he stays behind to do that. Despite Doon’s pleading, Sul refuses. Doon then goes and reunites with Lina and Poppy. They get into the boat, and the pressure of the water pushes them past the wheel.

The mayor goes to the tunnels to get into his bunker but encounters Looper, who also wants to go there. The mayor cold-bloodedly pushes Looper to get to his bunker alone. Looper gets up and follows the mayor, reminding him of their deal and that it was always supposed to be him and the mayor. But the mayor closes the door on him. He then turns to see the room, and to his shock, the big creature with tentacles is in the bunker. Before he can do anything, the creature runs toward him, and he screams.

Meanwhile, Doon, Lina, and Poppy are carried through a series of tunnels. The waters carry them to a calm lake, but that quickly leads them to a slide, which takes them to another place.

This then leads to the docks before the stairs. Here, they get off the boat. Doon finds a box that contains candles and a match. They light them and start navigating their way around in the dark using the candles.

They climb the stairs and reach a room with the quote “For the good of all mankind.” As they walk, they see a series of signs like “One step at a time,” “Don’t push,” “Careful for babies,” and more signs on the walls. When they pass them, they hear and feel the air. But what they are seeing is nothing but darkness. They start second-guessing their decision and Lina says that they are indeed right and that there is nothing in the darkness.

They sleep on the ground for that day, and the next morning, as Lina is sleeping, Doon and Poppy remain awake. When the sun shines, they see the earth is beautiful and green. The place is filled with plants and vegetables. They all get excited and walk on the new world they have just discovered.

Lina goes back to the hole they came from and screams to tell the people of Ember, but it is too far, and Doon tells her that it is impossible for anyone to hear her. So, they devise a plan. They write the instructions down, tie them to a rock, and throw it through the hole. Luckily enough, the rock reaches the right person, Loris. Loris picks up the rock and smiles at the discovery. Lina, Doon, and Poppy start their lives on earth while waiting for the others to come too.

The story teaches the value of courage, determination and collaboration in overcoming challenges. It highlights the importance of questioning authority, seeking truth and taking action to bring about positive change even in the face of fear and uncertainty.

City Of Ember 2008.