Disappointed by Everything but the Title and the Graphics

Rating: 4/10 (3 November 2013)

I give it 4 out of 10 stars. 3 stars are for the visually stunning graphics and the one star is for Harrison Fords nose because it's what I focused on for most of the movie. Now if you haven't read the book and don't plan too it is a brilliant work of teen fiction based using the inner monologue of a child to show the loss of innocence through war and using people as a means to an end. Now onto the movie, it is extremely similar to the book in terms of title, identical in fact, but they took way more justice in terms of substance and meaning. While trying to fit several years of a boys life in book time filled with thoughts and emotions they went with the bold move of having one sentence consisting of five word that covered months of thought processes and advanced scientific explanations. While the quick cut scenes of passing time keep you on your toes, because you're either trying to sneak out of the theater or have no idea what's going on because you haven't read the books, it makes it so no sub plot line is fully panned out but you see that there may have been some connection there in the book. The perfect medium of giving not enough information to satisfy the watcher, but enough to make them notice a better movie would have shown a relationship there. Now in the book they make it obvious that Lieutenant Anderson is the superior to Captain Graff, but the movie took justice with this making it so Harrison Ford could be the boss and that 20 minutes of the movie could be a close up on his face. Lastly onto Ender himself. While I am not an actor by choice (not my choice) I will say the performance was similar to me walking up to a child on a street and going, hey read this sentence and stare at that camera. So after reading the book and expecting some magical meaningful ending, the final meaning of the movie was follow your heart, you're friends are always there for you (even if they only make it into 3 scenes of your life and have no background), and Harrison Ford is kind of a dick. Now I hate to be that guy that points out movie flaws in sci-fi movies but at the end when he's walking on the planet with minimal oxygen and he needs to breath out of that can twice every minute, then has an interaction and just kind of forgets that he needs air to breathe, well I didn't forget and it makes me sad that you did. Now if you plan on going to see it I advise you to not go in thinking this is a good display of the book. In fact I advise you to not go in at all, and eat popcorn in the lobby while you read the book.