A Decent Film

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 2013)

I will start off by saying that I love love love the book Ender's Game. I went into the movie with very ow expectations. I was pleasantly surprised. Now don't get me wrong it is no Lord of the Rings, but it does more things right than it does wrong and considering how hard the novel is to turn into a movie I have to give credit where it is due. There are cuts made from the novel to streamline the story. The entire subplot on Earth involving Val and Peter is dropped completely. Ender is only shown having a few battles in the battle room where as in the book he has quite a few. It is just under two hours long but it is paced well so it doesn't feel that long. The battle room scenes are very cool I just wish there were more. Ender in the books is shown to be excellent at thinking out of the box and while this is shown in the movie it feels a little rushed. We are told several times that Ender is a genius tactician and that is supposed to serve as enough proof. Ender's Game does nothing special. See it if you liked the novel, but go in with low expectations. If you are not a fan of the series you'll get nothing out of seeing it. It won't shatter your world view. The acting is fairly good, except for ironically Ender's part, played by Asa Butterfield. He has a few crucial scenes at the end of the film that he needs to carry and he just can't pull it off.