Film Review: Ender’s Game

Ender’s Game for all accounts is an excellent book but as a film it fails to excite.

Set in a distant future the new sci-fi flick Ender’s Game sees gifted children trained as war leaders in an effort to thwart planet destroying attacks from giant ant-like aliens. It’s based on a popular sci-fi book from the mid-eighties but this movie adaptation fails to explain most of what’s going on in much depth.

The unlikely named Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is a Third, a third child that is, which is apparently a point of shame. Ender should never have existed or at least that is how he feels. He is therefore determined to prove himself at battle school.  Singled out by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford playing Harrison Ford) for his unique take on war games and strategy, Ender is put through the rings to prove his worth. He is subjected to bullying, kicked off the program, isolation, abusive commanders and hostile comrades all in an effort to gauge his reaction and help the powers that be determine if Ender is ‘The One’ – the one who will save mankind and annihilate the enemy once and for all.

The vast majority of Ender’s Game is spent with the teenage cadets waging virtual wars with each other. No doubt there is meant to be a subtle commentary about child soldiers but the message is lost amongst the two dimensional characters the movie offers up or diverted by the less than snazzy CGI effects of the simulated war games or space boot camp training centre. Butterfield does an adequate job of portraying Ender, a character who seems basically good but is forced to do bad things because of the circumstances he finds himself in. And there is a vague kind of subtext asking us to ponder whether the end justifies the means. However, what is annoying is how the film seems to switch between assuming the viewers are familiar with the story and glossing over key points to then spending too much time explaining what’s happening rather than showing it. The pace is disjointed and you soon feel as if the film is simply making sure it hits its plot points at specific times without ensuring any effort is made to connect them.

Ender’s Game for all accounts is an excellent book but as a film it fails to excite.  This seems to be the general consensus of audiences. After such a lack lustre performance at the US Box Office all hopes of making the series into a franchise have been abandoned.

Ender’s Game is simply not a game worth watching.

ENDER’S GAME
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford
Directed by: Gavin Hood
Written by: Gavin Hood, Orson Scott Card
Distributed by: Icon Films