This kid's crusade . . .

Rating: 7/10 (4 November 2013)

. . . may appeal to a slightly older age group than the upcoming Lego flick, but not by much. ENDER'S GAME posits that Han Solo and Ghandi have gone senile, and decided to put the fate of all mankind in the hands of the toughest kid they can find. Furthermore, they do not bother to tell the kid that the lives of "a thousand" unseen extras--grown men--are at the mercy of whatever rash decision the child makes in what the adults emphasize is only a "training exercise." The alien threat is totally stolen from the original STARSHIP TROOPERS (and TROOPERS author Robert Heinlein), but the only acknowledgment of this plagiarism is a scene in which the adults in the room emphasize that the showers are NOT unisex (as was the case with the forward-thinking TROOPERS), presumably because these child actors are so young they required THREE studio teachers, and ripping off that aspect of TROOPERS would be tantamount to "kiddie porn." Still, this derivative piece--while nice to look at in spots--will strain the credulity of anyone over the age of 8 (which constitutes a 3-year edge on the Lego Movie).