A Faithful Book Adaptation!

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2014)

Ender's Game is a rather faithful adaptation from the source material, well about as faithful one could hope for. The book itself is a very conceptual book and I was pleased many of the themes were prevalent in the movie. Themes on friendship and war are the biggest themes on display here. The visuals are fantastic and it shows how far the visual effects game has gone. The battle room, which features zero gravity, rendered me speechless at the awe of the film.
Gavin Hood's film is based off this kid named Ender Wiggins, who is prone to reactive violence and possess the skills of a fearless leader, according to Colonel Graff. He is also very fond of his sister. Ender finally gets accepted to Battle School, where he is trained to become a leader. One that will follow in the footsteps of Mazer Rackham in defeating the Formics, a group of genocidal aliens bent on destroying Earth.
The film has a very strong cast and they do well. Asa Butterfield wasn't exactly the Ender my mine pictured, but he did blow me away. Harrison Ford returns to his sci-fi roots as Colonel Graff and he does excellent, especially when he belittles Ender. Hailee Steinfeld does very well as one of Ender's few friends, Petra. We also get solid performances from the veterans Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis.
Overall, Ender's Game is a very good movie with very conceptual themes remaining intact. 2013 was a very strong year for science fiction and fantasy films, and the film continues that trend in a positive direction. The movie, in addition to having a strong story, has excellent visuals. The battle scenes are very well-done. As a YA-adaptation, the film works more of an action movie and that is always a good thing in my book. I would love to see more of Ender as he faces the aftermath of the respective Battle and Command Schools. I rate this film 9/10.