Ender's Game Reviews

The young leads do a fine job in this VFX heavy attempt at an epic adaptation. However Harrison Ford phones it in and several parts seem rushed, as if it was going through the motions, but not as bad as with 'Hunger Games'.

I'm assuming there won't a be a sequel...

I had friends who read the book when I was still in school. So I had been hearing about this years before it was even thought of on the big screen. The cast includes Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, and Viola Davis. I thought the storyline was pretty cool and interesting. The zero gravity scenes are probably the best scenes in my opinion. It was interesting to see Moises Arias play an antagonistic sort of character. The ending had a really amazing twist. It isn't the craziest Sci-fi movie you will see, but for me it was well executed. I say give this a chance as it is really an interesting movie.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but I thought it could be a nice watch for me and my step-son. Honestly, within the first 5 minutes, it was obvious that the whole thing had a lot of potential. Indeed, you could feel some pretty dark stuff underneath the surface, like how you create leadership or the psychological turmoil of a young genius who has to become a military strategist. It was some pretty great stuff but, unfortunately, it became also obvious pretty quickly that the makers had no intention to go to deep into those issues in order to reach the widest audience possible. As a result, there is a constant shifting in the tone between some compelling scenes lost in the middle of some familly friendly affair. Furthermore, while Viola Davis was perfectly cast, I thought that Harrison Ford was rather distracting and I kept wondering what the hell he was doing here. A part from that, it was visually quite compelling and I enjoyed the mind game and the war game at the end. The zero gravity game was not really my thing, it was just some futuristic paintball and I thought it was rather underwhelming. To conclude, it could have been great but they watered down the content so it could never really fulfill its potential. I still think it is worth a look though, especially if you like the genre.

"Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they'd leave me alone."

Although the 1985 novel Ender's Game is a highly celebrated work of science fiction literature, its author Orson Scott Card is a genuinely awful person, with his controversial opinions leading many to detest the man, regardless of his achievements. Hence, the long-awaited Ender's Game motion picture arrives after decades of development with a tremendous pall of negativity hanging over it, with talks of a boycott in the fear that box office dollars will wind up in Card's back pocket. It's a legitimate concern, and it's understandable that some might baulk from giving money to Card due to his personal life, but Ender's Game is an exceedingly average picture even without this burden on its shoulders, and it's not worth seeing anyway. It's a handsomely-designed and ambitious film, but it's also dramatically flaccid in the hands of director Gavin Hood, whose storytelling is utterly uninvolving and cold to the touch. It wants to be a Spielbergian sci-fi extravaganza but lacks the spirit and chutzpah to achieve lift-off.

In the future, Earth is invaded by a fleet of otherworldly creatures, resulting in millions of human casualties and leaving the planet shaken. Decades on, all signs point to another invasion, leading to the formation of Battle School, where promising young children are sent to sharpen their skills in the hope of becoming mankind's saviour. Overseeing the school is Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford), who sees tremendous potential in young Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), an outcast with a special tactical gift that puts him ahead of his competitive fellow students. Graff is convinced that Ender is the proverbial chosen one, but Ender has trouble fitting in, only eventually finding a kindred spirit in the cunning Petra Arkanian (Hailee Steinfeld).

Hood might have helmed the acclaimed foreign film Tsotsi, but his American track record is truly shocking, with the drab Rendition and the unredeemable X-Men Origins: Wolverine under his belt. Ender's Game again shows that Hood has a lot to learn. While the picture features all the requisite eye candy, it's a leaden experience on the whole. It takes a truly visionary director to adapt a visionary novel to its full potential, like Stanley Kubrick's cinematic treatment of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Hood's Ender's Game plays out like a flashy sci-fi film for young adults rather than an adaptation of a groundbreaking novel. It feels too mainstream, and the screenplay even attempts to make connections to today's youth culture, with Ender playing games on a tablet computer and emailing his family (why not just call the emails "messages"?).

Ender's Game eventually takes a whole other direction once the climactic "twist" is introduced, but this segment of the picture doesn't entirely work. There are major logistical issues facing this conclusion, and the twist doesn't feel as weighty as it should. It should be a significant, mind-blowing moment that brings you to the edge of your seat, but instead, it's a resoundingly flaccid reveal. Moreover, the story loses all sense of momentum and purpose from this point onward, and it feels like the writers don't quite know where to take things next. It's a fault inherent in the source material, granted, but it doesn't make this glaring issue any more forgivable. Fans of the book may also dislike some aspects of the book-to-screen translation, most significantly in the fact that Ender is a tween here as opposed to the six-year-old from the novel. Furthermore, the film seems to take place over a few weeks or months, whereas Card's novel takes place over a number of years. Perhaps most bothersome, though, is that Ender's family are given a reduced place in the narrative. Indeed, while his sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) has a few scenes to shine, Ender's other family members are only given a couple of lines of dialogue each.

Credit where credit is due, however, Ender's Game does spring to life in isolated moments. Hood gets particularly good mileage out of the training sequences, which are wholly engaging. A zero gravity battle room hosts many of the picture's standout set-pieces, especially a magnificent scene in which Ender is given the chance to test his leadership skills and smarts. The special effects are note-worthy across the board, with lavish production design helping to sell the expanse and luxury of this futuristic story. The acting is also predominantly solid across the board. Asa Butterfield is a good actor, and for the most part, he acquits himself well as Ender. However, while he's an amiable presence, he unfortunately falls short with the finish line in sight. At the end of the movie, he's asked to achieve the type of acting that even Oscar winners would baulk at... And, suffice it to say, Butterfield may be good, but nobody is that good, which is likely one of the main reasons why the ending doesn't carry the significance or weight that it should. Meanwhile, Harrison Ford is reliably solid, with his usual gruffness serving him well as Colonel Graff. The remainder of the cast is decent, too, with Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis and Abigail Breslin all making their mark.

Ender's Game is an interesting failed experiment but it's still a failure nevertheless, which is a real letdown considering how long the project has been gestating. The movie hedges its bets on sequels, but its woeful box office performance and lack of public interest have essentially spelt death to that plan, rendering this an unsatisfying standalone effort that needed a defter touch. Hood's film is not a visionary masterpiece, but instead a run-of-the-mill sci-fi blockbuster that tries to keep itself palatable enough to attract interest from broad audiences. Hood tries to grapple with all of the fascinating themes of the book, but it ultimately feels like a rote piece of work that does lip service to Card's intents.

4.9/10

"What?!" That was the first thought I had when the end credits started rolling for Ender's Game. This is partly due to the fact that the story is incomplete, and the film ends, essentially, with a cliffhanger. Some might say it's less a cliffhanger then a hook for a potential sequel, but the story is not wrapped up, so in my eyes, the film ends with a cliffhanger. In addition to this, the ending is just plain weird. I will avoid spoilers in this review (very difficult, considering many of my problems with the film revolve around the last 10 minutes or so), but let's just say that anyone that has not read the book (I am included in this demographic) will be baffled, confused, and decidedly weird-ed out.

The premise of Ender's Game, is that in the future, gifted children are to be enrolled a sort of military school, so that they can be trained to attack against an alien fleet that threatens the existence of the universe. An especially gifted young boy named Andrew "Ender" Wiggins is accepted into this school, and is the one that Colonel Graff believes will end this long-fought war.

It really is a shame that so much of Ender's Game doesn't work, because there is so much in this film that works really well. The acting is generally solid (though not without some less-than-superb performances, which I'll detail later), the visuals are good (and at some points, absolutely gorgeous), and the premise does have a lot of potential. I like the main character, Ender Wiggins, and I like the development in the relationships Ender makes throughout the movie.

Unfortunately, for every good thing there is in Ender's Game, there's at least one bad thing. The ending, for instance is a major issue. As I mentioned before, there will be no spoilers, though frankly, I have a lot of opinions about the last 10 minutes that would likely take at least 2 reviews to fully detail.

One (of several problems) with the ending is its big "twist." Maybe my expectations for this fabled twist were a little high. I was especially curious because many that had read the book complained that the twist was revealed in the trailers. The twist, in fact, is hardly a twist. It's hard to explain without giving anything away, but this twist- while not predictable- really isn't much of a shocker. I didn't see it coming, but I wasn't shocked, nor surprised. The twist just doesn't feel consequential, or meaningful, and there are a number of reasons I can think of as to why this might be, and how it could've been fixed- though I, of course, can't detail them without spoilers.

In addition to the ending, there are a significant number of scenes that just had a really awkward feel. That's really the best I can describe these scenes- awkward. Maybe once or twice, this was done intentionally, but I really do think most of these occurrences were completely unintentional, and it makes one feel a bit squeamish. Sometimes it's because of the dialogue, others because of the cinematography, but there are enough of these kinds of scenes that it's worth mentioning here.

Also disappointing is how little is done to enunciate this dark premise of children learning warfare to fight in a galactic battle. It's briefly touched upon, but this sort of controversial and thought provoking premise is given little in-depth discussion in the film. Movies like The Hunger Games have done an excellent job of properly displaying the darkness of its twisted premise, but Ender's Game makes almost no attempts to do so.

The acting, as I mentioned before, is generally solid, but not without mis-steps. Asa Butterfield is good in the role of Ender Wiggins, but I couldn't help but feel like this was a step back from his near flawless leading role in 2011's Hugo. Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff is solid, but his character is missing the wit, energy, and charm that we're so accustomed to seeing Ford deliver. Ben Kingsley's small role as Mazer Rackham is not without merit, though his makeup job is silly and distracting. Also notable for their good performances are Viola Davis, Nonso Anozie, Hailee Steinfield, and Abigail Breslin.

The films involvement with children, unfortunately, does lend itself to some expectedly bad "child performances," but for a film with this many kids, the acting is all right. The main problem here is Moisés Arias as Bonzo. In addition to being completely miscast, Arias just feels really off in his entire performance. He's really more laughable than menacing.

The score composed by Steve Jablonsky is simply atrocious. Offensively so, actually. The score for Ender's Game is, essentially, trailer music. In other words, it has loud percussion, far too much electronic influence, and no personality. It's completely anonymous sounding, and the gimmicky uses of viola and cello frustrate me. If trailer music is your thing, then you'll probably really like this score, but to me, it just sounds like stock music, and bad stock music at that. This score is especially disappointing when one considers that James Horner was initially attached to compose for this film before leaving the project. Surely even Horner at his absolute worst would've been a massive improvement over the drivel we have to suffer through here.

Ender's Game has a lot of problems (believe me, I've barely started to name them all), and the missed potential here is a bit crushing. But there is a lot that Ender's Game does right. I'll be honest, there were significant portions of the film that I found to be relatively gripping. If nothing else, I was hardly ever bored during Ender's Game (especially notable because of its near 2 hour length). Unfortunately, a terrible ending, less than intelligent handling of the premise, awkward scenes, and a horrendous score (among other problems) stop Ender's Game from being the enjoyable Sci-Fi entry it wants to become. Ender's Game obviously wants to start a franchise (and early box office numbers suggest this may happen), but there's going to have to be some significant changes made if it hopes to be a truly notable YA adaption.

Just a few thoughts:

Ender's Game' path to the big screen was a long and winding road, with Orson Scott Card refusing to part with the film rights; in the process eliminating screenwriters such as Game of Thrones' D.B Weiss. Card's book goes through an ample amount of critical points and carries a moral complexity that is difficult to portray in an acceptable time frame- imagine the potential this story could have as a mini tv series? Asa Butterfield has an impresive acting resume and delivers a remarkably stoic performance as Ender Wiggin. Moreover, the depiction of Wiggin's Mind Game are some of my favorite scenes from the film and Hood made a smart move averting the use of photo real to contrast it with the rest of the film. Lastly, the final space battle scored a few points for me in which Hood took a small idea, expanded it by epic proportions, and turned it into the cinematic experience that the viewers needed. However, what I found really vexing was the over-explicit nature of the script. There were far too many times where I felt what was said was too contrived and it took away from what should've been an emotional journey- show us, don't tell us is a golden rule. In a theatre 90% full of nostalgic middle-aged people, "Good" is all this film amounted to. Yet you have to commend Hood's efforts in attempting to condense a story that spanned 6 years and allowed atleast 10% of people in that theatre to walk away in a facade of satisfaction.

My expectations were average but I enjoyed 'Ender's Game', there was a good cast (Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin) that gave some very good acting, it contained solid thrills and some amazing effects

Just wondering if they'll make any of the sequels, as 'Ender's Game' is the first book in a series, who knows? To conclude, 'Ender's Game' is a decent movie and definitely worth a look