Ender's Game

I hesitated to watch this movie for a long time - reason being my endless love for the adapted book, which is my absolute favorite. It is needed to be said in the review, because even with all the effort it is impossible for me to review the movie without influence of the book.

Movie did actually better job than I expected. I liked the cast of the main characters, Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield. Both did very good job. A big positive surprise for me was the visual aspect of the movie, I liked it actually so much, it is the main reason, why I keep my rating for the movie so high despite the negatives.

The biggest problem of the Ender's Game adaptation is the race against the time. The movie tries to squeeze huge amount of information in a short time and it just does not work. I cannot imagine, how I would feel without having any background information from the book. Even if we can discuss whether the "Earth" sideline with Ender's siblings has to or doesn't have to be in the movie (it does not), there is the main storyline describing Ender's time spend in Battle school and it is handled so shallowly and quickly, it hurts. This story just needs more space. Without it there is almost no character development. No emotions towards side characters, like Bean or Petra or all the others, barely recognizable for the viewer. Even the great ending is ripped of emotions partially because of it. I felt all the aspects of the movie are more handled as trailers to that aspect than actually diving into it. And it is a pity.

It was still a nice experience, seeing the universe come to life.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down!

The box-office failure of big budget (110m$) book adaptation 'Ender's Game' doesn't bode well for the future of my favorite movie genre. Writer Orson Scott Card has had many offers since the book release in 1985 to turn it into a film. He rejected many of them because of creative differences and because most Studios insisted on making Ender older (in the book he's 6 to 10 years old). There were plans in 2003 by Warner Brothers to let Wolfgang Petersen have a go at it with a script written by Card himself. Card's script was a fusion of 'Ender's Game' and 'Ender's Shadow'. In 2010 Gavin Hood got attached as director and screenwriter and the script became based on the first book again with plans to make it into a franchise or a TV series if successful. Unfortunately EG made only 112m$ worldwide (although it opened first place in the US with 27m$) so all future plans have been put on ice. It's really a shame because as far as science fiction flicks go this really is one of the better ones. The VFX were done by Digital Domain who also co-financed the film and they look absolutely stunning. This film will a good 4K showcase Blu-ray when they finalize the format at the end of 2014. The film follows the book quite closely but because of the time constraints of the film medium a lot of events had to be compressed and some subplots where eliminated. 113 mins really is too short, an extra 40 mins or so would have let more room to expand on Ender's training etc. Altogether I think most fans of the book will be happy with the end result but it it just lacks the depth the book had to offer. So hopefully they make a 3 hour extended version (depending on how much material they shot) on BD to give the story more time to breathe.

This movie was actually really good! I thoroughly enjoyed it, the characters were great, storyline was intriguing, and acting was good. I expected a 6.6 movie, but got one way better than that.

Apparently Enders Game was considered a flop and only just broke even. Hard to understand, because it's a truly excellent movie. The plot is very good, the cast outstanding, the production top quality and even though it's science fiction, it's very believable. And something else; it was very poignant. Overall far better than the Maze Runner and Divergent series. Oh, and Harrison Ford was perfect for the part.

I have read the first two Ender books years ago, so I knew what to expect from the movie. And it delivered. "Ender's Game" is a deeply disturbing tale of a child made into a monster by the fears of his society. Much like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" at its most puissant, it makes one wonder what is there in humanity worth protecting, and at what price.