A good game

Rating: 7/10 (7 November 2013)

I unfortunately did not have much prior knowledge going into this movie. A buddy of mine loves the novel and has been looking forward to the film adaptation for some time, and I am aware of the recent press the author Card has had with his public praise for male/female marriage, which I admire. Other than that I only knew of what I have heard. I predicted this based on what I knew to be more of a mind games thing than it was. After talking to my friend who read the novel testified to and is the case for many novels, there are many interesting details not present in the film adaptation that greatly fleshed out the characters.
There was apparently many more mental warfare scenarios in the novel that are a bit difficult to put together on the big screen. But what's here is pretty good. The character development is decent, although empathy may be a stretch in some scenarios of this science fiction universe, the viewer is probably on Ender's side a majority of the time, especially with the odds stacked against him and many other cadets and bullies out to get him. It's also entertaining to watch Ender succeed in almost every adversarial situation. There is apparently more explanation as to how Ender dissects his opponents in the novel and that isn't explained in the movie. Sometimes it seems far fetched for a lanky boy to maneuver and get out of the situations he does without the explanation of his mental acuity.