Just so there is no confusion, this review will be ignoring all the controversy about author Orson Scott Card’s beliefs. The review will look at Ender’s Game as a movie and as an adaptation of the popular book. In both views, the movie falls short. It fails as a movie and does not do a particularly good job in adapting the book. Let’s see where the problems lie. WARNING: Spoilers ahoy.
Ender’s Game is a classic science fiction book about a boy genius who gets recruited to a military school to see if he is the one who will save the human race from the invading aliens and the psychological toll it takes on him. The book goes into great detail about how the school administrators purposely allow him to be isolated and feel alone so that he can learn the necessary tools to win the war. The movie attempts to follow the general narrative, but fails in several places. Part of it might be due to cuts that could be restored in a director’s cut, but the general timeline of the movie is completely messed up.
The problem with the movie is that it feels (for the most part) like the whole thing takes place over just a few months. So from Ender getting his monitor taken off to Ender saving the human race feels like it’s only a few months. There is even one scene (when Ender is getting command of Dragon army) where Graff sees a countdown that reads 28 days until the fleet is in position. Ender goes to his lake vacation after that (and then Command School after the vacation). So, if it is only 28 days from when Ender gets Dragon Army until the final fight, then that doesn’t leave nearly enough time for Ender to have multiple Dragon Army battles, go to the lake on Earth and then go to Command School and fight. The timeline is rushed and the whole movie feels rushed. I understand why they did it (so they don’t need to have multiple actors play Ender at different ages), but they weren’t able to twist the story to work with this limitation.
The adaptation is even more troubling. For whatever reason, they cut the Bugger invasion from two invasions to one. This makes the genocide of the Buggers even more troubling. With two invasions, there is a real reason to believe that they will keep coming back. With one invasion, and the Buggers never returning, the genocide feels wrong. They also put the battles with the Buggers on Earth instead of in space. And my biggest problem is with the Mazer Rackham’s winning attack. In the book, they stress that the Queen Bugger’s ship looked and moved just like every other ship. In the movie, the Queen is in a giant ship with the other Buggers in smaller fighter ships. This make the entire Rackham storyline misfire because it’s no longer a genius who figured out which ship is the Queen. It’s a normal soldier who figured out that the big ship is the one to attack.
Overall it’s a thoroughly mediocre movie. The special effects are decent, but not spectacular. The actors (including Harrison Ford as Graff) are decent, but not spectacular. Overall it was extremely disappointing. I have no desire to see any future Ender movies if they are going to be handled in the same manner. Not Recommended.