Ender’s Game is based on the 1985 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, where after an alien race attacks Earth without cause or mercy, the International Fleet prepares for the next invasion by training the best young children to find the future candidate to lead the Fleet into victory. Enter Ender Wiggin, a brilliant young mind, who is recruited and trained to lead his fellow soldiers into a battle that will determine the Earth’s future.
Directed by Gavin Hood, whose only real credit is 2009s disastrous X-Men Origins: Wolverine, to say that he is out of director jail and made a pretty decent flick is a good thing. There have been a lot of online talks about Ender’s Game in recent months, mostly having to do with rather a movie based on such a popular book can be any good. Without having read the book to compare it to and going off just the movie, I say yes. Hood managed to craft a compelling, character driven movie about the rights and wrongs of war.
The story centers on Ender, played by Asa Butterfield who is just wonderful. Ender is naturally good at everything in his training, which keeps him isolated from others. It’s what weighs him down as a character. He doesn’t want to be the next “messiah” for war, but it’s the only thing he’s good at. Being able to think like your enemy makes him a “god” on the battlefield, but it also is what makes him sad, knowing your greatest skill is always death to others. The character has layers upon layers of depth, and Butterfield carries the weight of the entire movie, a less skilled actor probably couldn’t have pulled it off, but he does it with grace and dignity for someone so young.
Playing the part of Ender’s father figure and commanding officer Colonel Graff is Harrison Ford. Now in recent years Ford has become somewhat of an acting joke, he just doesn’t try anymore or speak clearly. I guess it might have to do with the project he’s working on or what he sees as a good movie to put in a passable performance. He must have liked Ender’s Game because about 60% of him is acting and it’s really great to see. The other 40% of him is just being an old man in his 70s being barley understandable, not unlike watching someone read the cue cards on SNL. But his scenes with Ender are always good and powerful no matter how much or less he was putting in.
Ford’s character knows the truth about the war and has put all his chips on Ender to save the world. But in doing that, he becomes the story’s “villain” in a strange way. Always seeing the “big picture” and the next win, he loses his human side in a way. He never saw any of the children as “children”, just tools to fight the war with. This puts him at odds with Ender. If Ender had known the truth, he wouldn’t have been so bloodthirsty in battle, and may have lost or found another way to win. There is a scene towards the end where Ender yells at Graft, it’s one of the best scenes in the movie. It’s quick and mostly all acting, but man, do these two actors go at it. Ford and Butterfield’s raw emotional energy reads on the film and you feel the pain from each one down to your core. You don’t get that all too often, but when you do, damn is it good.
The rest of the cast is just as good, but the movie isn’t really about them. They’re wonderful filler as characters Ender meets along the way who better him. Viola Davis brings a strong sympathetic voice to the movie, whereas Ben Kingsley is Ender’s childhood hero, giving Ender something to look up too. Ender has a team of really great young actors that all have their moments whether it be small or important. Each character is thought out and given depth, no matter how small their interaction with Ender may be. Bottom line: everyone in the movie does the best they can do, and it shows.
The special effects are fine, but Ender’s Game has the bad luck to be coming out after the release of Gravity. There are scenes of combat in the Battle Room, featuring as many as 30 kids flying through zero gravity, performing formations and maneuvers. They’re good, but fall flat compared to the wizards that did Alfonso Cuaron’s special effects. This can also be said of the war room scenes towards the end of the movie. There’s plenty going on, and it can be hard to make out what you’re looking at here and there. The creature effects are the best in the movie, but are so far and few that you forget them right after they’ve happened. Overall they’re great effects, but could have been better for a movie of this size and scale.
If you love the book, I’m sure you’re not going to like this, only because the movie never lives up to the idea in your mind. But if you haven’t read the book and just want a somewhat entertaining sci-fi movie, then you should be ok. It’s not action packed by any means, there is some action here and there and the filmmakers manage to keep your interest for sure, but this story is more of a character study on war and how we as humans may or may not lose ourselves in its thrall. Overall this was a sold flick, with lots of positive things about it, which out weigh the negatives for sure. And sometimes with a book being turned into a movie, that’s the best we can hope for.