Ender's Game Movie Review

I mentioned in  my post about the trailers that I was a bit nervous about this movie adaptation and whether they'd actually capture the essence of the book. As it turns out my fears were not unfounded.

World-Building: Too "epic" as an adaptation of a simpler book
Characterization: mostly 2D
Plot: Rushed, not enough build-up for the final twist

Whether you like the author and the other books in the series or not Ender's Game is undeniably one of the best Sci-Fi books of recent years. Its a very personal character story focusing on Ender's fears and his weaknesses as much as his strengths and it is the characterization that carri3s the book and it's plot. Unfortunately, while watching this movie I felt that something was off, that some essential aspect of the tale had been lost in translation.

The movie faithfully reproduces a lot of the "moments" from the book that people will have been looking forward to, but without the important groundwork of characterization behind them they don't have the same impact in the film that they did in the book. Ender's character is played well by Asa Butterfield (Mordred in Merlin, Hugo) but the movie isn't from his point of view and doesn't allow his character to develop in the same personal way that we saw in the book.

I also felt disappointed by the ending of this movie. The twist at the end was what gave the book a place among the greats of the genre. The things that twist at the end said about human nature and war and childhood, and so forth. Unfortunately, this wasn't handled at all well in the movie and this essential twist wasn't even really obvious.

It's been a while since I read the book so I didn't exactly go into it wanting a perfect word for word reproduction of the source material. All I hoped for and expected was that they would keep the essence of the story intact, that they wouldn't ruin the message and power of the book's twist with over-reliance on CGI and spectacle. Unfortunately, this was too much to expect.

I can't say more without spoilers, so be warned.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT -- for both BOOK and MOVIE

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The biggest fault this movie had was the fact that it didn't really stress the whole simulation, game aspect and it didn't focus on Ender's feelings of being worn out and tired and done with the whole thing, so when he decided to use the little doctor on the planet at the end it seemed like just a strategy that he legitimately would have used in a real battle. In the book it was supposed to be his way of making himself disqualify from training so he could be done with it and rest. The movie doesn't show us his weariness and his feelings about this final act nor does it even make it very clear that the adults were lying to him and using him without telling him that his battles were real.

Actually, when I watched the film I had a hard time figuring out at which point exactly Ender found out that what he thought was a game was actually real. The stupid "why are these images in the simulation" thing didn't really work - it didn't really convey the sense of horror and betrayal that Ender would have been feeling.

Another thing I didn't like was the stupid moving around spaceships on a simulation with his hands. How does that actually work? Especially when you know they're real spaceships... how does him doing that thing with his arm actually affect anything?

The other big misstep of the movie is in Ender's characterization. His loneliness and his worries were not at all clear.The terror he felt towards Peter and towards the idea that he was just like Peter was nowhere to be found.

The battle school scenes were also cut down to the minimum. Where they played a huge role in the book the movie only showed two battles and they weren't what I imagined. At the same time the role of Alai and Bean was greatly reduced. This movie really could have used a few more minutes to focus more on the battle school battles as well as the characters.

As a result of all these issues this film ends up being a story about how one kid is smart and "the one" and beats the aliens instead of the powerful tale about the nature of war and desensitization and morality and the issue of child soldiers.

(On a less important note, what was up with Ben Kingsley's accent? For some reason (even though he's played many characters with many different accents before) I found it hard to buy his New Zealand accent...)

Overall, I feel this movie was more of a summary of the images of the book without the heart and soul that was behind it. A disappointment.