Felt half hearted, to a viewer who never read the books

Rating: 5/10 (15 June 2014)

I actually wanted to see this movie in part because I've never read Ender's Game and was told by multiple people who know I like science fiction that it is sort of a must, to feel out the books a little before hand. So, going in I understood that the movie was probably in all likelihood not going to have the depth or breadth a book could have.
However, even know this, the movie fell a little flat. The pacing seemed clipped at some parts, and there is no explanation given at all why his brother and family act the way they do. There is obviously a lot of psychological/philosophical stuff that is going on in Ender's head, as well as in Graff's head and the other characters, but since this is a movie we get to see none of that so all their actions felt precursory.
The filming style and the "deep serious we-are-running-out-of-time" music throughout the entire film just made it feel like one long, 2 hour trailer than a movie with a beginning, middle, and end. The ending felt super rushed, and the "reveal" of what the final game is felt predictable.
I guess you could say the entire film felt a bit predictable, like some sort of Hunger Games YA story in space- which I know that the books are very much NOT young adult books. And part of that predictability to me comes from not knowing any of the motivations for the characters beyond one-liners as explanations.
Not to say that it was a bad movie- just mediocre. As a sci-fi movie, there are a lot better ones, and as an action movie there are also a lot better ones.
I think the movie-makers/script writer floundered here. Even as someone who never read the book, I could see that they were trying to fit/adapt something that was more cerebral into a faster-paced dystopian sci-fi action movie, and it failed, especially towards the end. I could see glimpses of where they tried to bring on bigger moral issues into the movie, but given the short amount of time and how much "action" they were trying to cram into it they could not afford to linger too long on those issues and so as a whole the movie came off as "not quite".
Vaguely entertaining, but forgettable. Not bad, but I came in with higher expectations of it being a good science fiction film, and it was only so-so.