Pretty good movie that would have been better had it stuck closer to the book

Rating: 6/10 (18 February 2014)

This movie is well-acted but suffers from poor writing/production choices. The movie skips important sequences that are critical to the development of the characters and wastes time in areas that are not. For example, there is a video game sequence with Ender as a rat that should have been entirely excluded in favor of more scenes in the battle-room. Also, the movie makes it seem that the initial Formic attack happened in Earth's atmosphere, which is a ridiculous perversion of the novel and basic science. There is also the weird Sergeant character played by Anozie - a meaningless character who doesn't belong as the children are supposed to be largely managing themselves. On the plus side, Harrison Ford is a pleasure to watch and Butterfield performs well. Not a bad film but very disappointing because it had so much potential to be great.