A rushed sound-bite movie - a disappointment

Rating: 5/10 (27 October 2013)

I have no problem with movies based on books if they are done well.
For me, doing them badly involves quoting a couple of pages near verbatim then tearing out and ignoring the next twenty. In my view, this is what has been done in adapting Ender's Game, the remnants have been stacked together as a bunch of sound-bites and run at fast forward speed, leaving no time for character progression and the growth of friendships that is the mainstay to the original story.
It may be that, like Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy, this was an unmakeable film so we should perhaps thank them for their brave effort that didn't quite make it.
In failing, the film is a testament to the writing of Card that he could cram so much story into just 350 paperback pages that it couldn't been captured in 2 hours on the screen.
And finally, Ben Kingsley's performance, what a shocker! Think we'll see more of Asa Butterfield though.