The Last Starfighter (I hope)

Rating: 3/10 (22 June 2014)

I never read the books, so my only perspective is on the movie itself, and it was tedious. By now, we've all seen enough special FX spectaculars, no? Are we still knocked out by video game movies? Not if it has nothing else to offer. The star kid was on acting par with Jaden Smith. He had one expression, intensely furrowed brow. Or was that everyone? As a matter of fact, I gather smiling and laughing was pretty much banned in this future; parents, leaders, relatives, friends -- either angsty, sad or angry. The music was a horrible minor key drone from beginning to end. It made me angsty, sad, and angry. All I recall are lots of round doors which when opened revealed lots of big triangles, where kids played bouncy house laser tag. Did Ender show Harrison Ford the enemy egg at the end or hide it under his shirt when he walked back from the nearby cave? And then Our Hero becomes an admiral, so they give him a spaceship and an apparently infinite amount of fuel in order to zoom about the universe. Alone. No co-pilot, flight engineer, med-tech, navigator or Robby the Robot to talk to. But maybe he'll have a pal if the egg hatches. Or maybe the creature will eat him. At least the Last Starfighter had the affable Robert Preston, rather than this endlessly dour cast.