Terrible

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2013)

The reviewers were right – it's a movie without the original sole. I never even heard of the book until this film started coming out, but even I can see what a mess this is. In part, the original story might not have been great, but this cut makes it a disjointed mess.
Most of the movie is just a terrible warschool cadet story, where obvious issues and problems happen. The fact that all the fights between the children are encouraged by the adults is just horrible to watch. Harrison Fords character even compares the kids to horses. And it goes for most of the movie.
What I never got from the movie is a good enough explanation on what these kids can do so much better than the old experienced veterans. What was so necessary for this program of child soldiers to exist? Everything I saw in the movie could have been done better by the pro veterans. The plot is like watching very old people trying to use Windows Vista or 8 computers, and then bugging their kids to do it for them.
The concealment of the tattooed hero, who stopped the fist invasion, is stupid. Why classify it? It just makes learning enemy weaknesses harder. Do the bugs plan to spy on the humans for their unfixable logistics weakness?
The final big plot twist, that the exam simulation was an actual final war battle Ugh. So the plan was to send in a fleet of manned battleships and drone squadrons, which are all remotely controlled by a small group of kids, who didn't even have a plan or any intelligence data for the final fight. And it ended with them loosing all the ships and ramming the planet at full speed with the BFG. What was the point of the battleship manned crew again? There were thousands on board, last I remember. What did those people sign up for? A suicide ramming of the planet.
It was like watching the second Gulf War commanded by the Korean StarCraft world champion. A better plan would have been to draw out the enemy, thin their finite forces and go in for the kill. There was no timer.
So in the end it's a movie about stupid "us or them" propaganda, child soldiers, genocide and bullying, all crammed in to the point of disgusting.
The book came out in 1985. StarCraft came out in 1998. Child prodigy strategists are no longer a novelty. And nobody wants to see kids recklessly command adults to their death as a game. This movie missed its big chance by a decade.