Ender of the road

Rating: 4/10 (14 March 2014)

Starship Troopers was a right wing book subverted by a left wing film-maker. The Ender's Game books are similarly conservative themed books which should had a radicalized left leaning interpretation. What we get is Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games via Starship Troopers (PG rated.)
Harrison Ford sleepwalks through this film, then again he has been sleepwalking in his films since Air Force One. Ben Kingsley turns up as a tattooed Maori with cod Yoda leanings.
The film relies on some gifted kid fighters in a training academy using simulation battles in preparation to launch an assault on the planet of the alien invaders.
The fact that some of the kids live in a regimented environment where bullying is common place just like the regular army makes you think what sort of kids were being recruited by Harrison Ford and Co. Ender is the only one who shows sign of actually engaging a tactical brain seems to be lost on the other bullies whose response to losing to a better boy is to lash out. It actually makes the people running the entire academy look like a bunch of incompetents when there is a looming alien threat.
There are some good special effects, Asa Butterfield shows spirit as Ender but this is a franchise that is not going very far.