Eh..

Rating: 5/10 (6 November 2013)

Despite what I might, personally, think of the author, he wrote a good series. Although my last reading of Ender's Game was about fifteen years back, I remember it fondly, especially the balance between character development, action and plot flow. The movie has little of that balance. I was left feeling like I had viewed an unedited version, with the transition and character development scenes yet to be added, and the "catch phrases" that focused the book, just crammed in, any place they might fit- irrespective of chronological logic or story. As I was pulled from one jagged scene to the next, there was little time to know or care about the characters or the plot (I didn't even care about the fate of the human race- which is a tough trick to pull off). I found myself wondering how anyone unfamiliar with the book could even get anything from the movie experience.
Yes, adding another half hour for character and plot development might have helped, some; however, even more important would have been writing and directing that showed some understanding of what actually made the book worth reading. This just felt like a rushed mess.