Review of Ender's Game (2013) by Robert L — 20 Apr 2014

"Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?".

I hear that the book of Ender's Game is phenomenal, and it only makes sense that one day there would be a film about it (like all books really), so I suppose the reel question is will this new sci-fi kids film be a New Hope or just another Phantom Menace?

Ender's Game is one of those films you wouldn't watch if you had a choice, because of how feeble the storyline sounds from the outside. But if only we bother to look just a little closer we could see something truly special locked inside it's walls.

Because Ender's Game is a special movie, it's not like the normal trash you see released for children, this is a film that is looking for an audience to think, and not just watch. Ender's Game is more about the pyschological warfare that a reality like this might have on children than the actual physical act of the games. Ender's Game is like if The Hunger Games challenge was in the form of a mathematical equation, it doesn't sound like it should work, but it does.

Ender's Game is a film that eases you into it like a warm bath, it allows you to become submerged and taken in slowly, and then the game totally changes. Because Ender's Game has more than one surprise up it's sleeves, it is a film that knows how to pace itself.

The movie itself is relatively straight forward, 50 years ago (set in the future) an alien race tried to attack earth, we won but the threat could return at any second so we build an army of the greatest and brightest leaders ever to be born and we start training them when they are children. This is what must have happened to the Jedi students when we see them playing with lightsabers but there must have been many more darker tests and that is where we find Ender's Game; in the darkness, in the shadows, moving around, creeping, being cold and unfair to it's protagonist.

I agree the film is at times a little all over the place, and because of time constraints it does l feel like it's moving a touch too fast. Ender has only just started at the academy and is almost instantly given his own squadron,but this is because the film has only got 2 hours to play with and a lot of story to cram in.

What I think is one of Ender's Game's greatest strengths is that the protagonist Ender isn't a nice person, he isn't supposed to be likeable, he is there to serve like any other warrior sent off to battle, he isn't a hero, just a brain with one goal.

The film also never really focuses on the aliens, at the front of the film at all times is the humans, fighting and bickering, trying to beat each other, it is here where Ender's Game starts to ask us questions on morality.

I think it's a good sign that legends of Hollywood take time and appear in movies like Ender's Game, I mean Harrison Ford doesn't need the money, it's going to be a long time until sir Ben Kingsley goes hungry but there they are, and why are they there? To show support for the next generation of talents and boy are there a lot on show in Ender's Game .I could list the entire cast off here in an attempt to show who's got the talent but let me say that every single actor in the movie could be a star any day, and Asa Butterfield in particular is showing incredible potential.

Ender's Game is more Lord OF The Flies than Star Wars and I love it for daring to be so bold, a kids film that poses questions about mortality and not just trying to sell the toys.