Review of Ender's Game (2013) by Python2000 — 03 Jan 2014

Can I start off by saying that this movie is not homophobic or anti-gay and that that is only the writer of the book Orson Scott Card (dick).

The director of that badly written CGI fest X-Men Origins Wolverine sets out to make the movie of the complex book which predicted things such as the internet, gaming and e-mail, he does it surprisingly well.

Asa Butterfield is perfectly cast as Ender and really makes the role his own, Harrison Ford is awesome (need I say more) and all of the supporting cast who make up Enders dragon army are brilliant also. Something which took me by surprise was the quality of the CGI in the space scenes. It was really good. I have not yet seen Gravity, so I won't say it's the best of the year. But it's definitely near the top of the list. However the best thing about the movie by far is the twist within the last 20 minutes (WHICH I WILL NOT REVEAL), but really took me by surprise. I am assuming that the twist was in the book and if I had read that first maybe it would not have been so effective. But I didn't read the book first, so the twist was totally unexpected and very very clever.

The first thing which started to ruin the movie was the ending which is not satisfying, and while I understand it now, it was difficult to interpret while the credits were rolling. The last shot is stolen from Avatar too. Also in contrast to many other movies, where he has been absolutely amazing, Ben Kingsley's performance is not all that good. He fits his character, but changes personality and even worse changes accent, which is one of the biggest sins possible for an actor to commit. Although the main problem with Enders Game, is too many unintentionally funny scenes (the same problem Gavin Hood had in X-Men Origins Wolverine). The clichéd bully gets embarrassed scenes, grin inspiring voice breaks from Asa Butterfield and laugh out loud hilarious first appearance of Ben Kingsley are just some of the unforgettable comedy moments in the movie.

Overall Enders Game failed to be the science fiction epic that Orson Scott Card's (dick) novel was, but does succeed at being an intelligent science fiction fantasy for kids and I found that movie perfectly enjoyable.