Probably as good as could be achieved without making it a two-parter.

Rating: 7/10 (21 November 2013)

In preparation for the movie, I reread the book last weekend, so I went to the theater with the story fresh in my mind. Maybe this was a mistake though. I spent most of the movie comparing it to the novel rather than watching it for its own sake. But how does it compare then? Well, cinematography and effects are great and the movie looks pretty much the way I'd imagined it or at least close enough. They also include almost all the story lines, all the major characters and stick as close to the book as can reasonably be achieved. Mission accomplished then? Not quite. My main gripe with the movie, and this may be much less of a problem for people who didn't read the book, is that the scope of the story is missing. Ender spends six years in Battle/Command School, but in the movie it's more like a couple of months. I get that there were time constraints (and the fact that aging such a young actor would have been tricky), but as a result the whole thing feels rushed. The same can be said about the battles in battle-school. It fails to show Ender's gift for tactics and really skims over his relationship with the other students.
There is also the fact that the movie is softer than the book. In the book, Ender kills Bonzo (and Stilson before that). Here, he only critically injures him. In the book, training is extremely taxing at Battle-school and command school is downright grueling with multiple nervous breakdowns from students.
The movie also omits the Demosthenes/Locke storyline, but that can be forgiven, since it most likely would have taken far too much time to portray on the screen.
All in all and given the time restrictions, they did a good job.