MOVIE REVIEW: ENDER'S GAME

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In future the earth had been almost destroyed by the alien attack. The government is harvesting “gifted children” who has the ability to “understand” the enemy. As Alien forces prepare for the deadly strike, the first after fifty years, a boy named Ender fights his way through the hierarchy of cadets to become the commander in chief. But in the world where everyone is for themselves, what is game and what is real?

In our age where starving artists are trying to sell to Hollywood the original ideas and being rejected because these ideas are “unsellable” how does a major studio invest into a film with the potentially “unsellable” script?

This is what we a dealing here with… a lot of training. A lot of game playing. Then more of game playing. Nothing is really at stake until some nonsensical revelations in the end (at least they seem nonsensical in the film) and a “weird” ending that belongs in the low calibre art-house cinema.

Asa Butterfield plays a very unlikable Ender. This one will do anything to achieve his goal. He has the mind of a true strategist however, so even his spontaneous actions such as rebellious escapades against commanders and "sincere" bonding with co-students target one aim only - to win at all costs. Here is the kid I would enjoy to bully myself if I had a misfortune to end up with him at the same class (same school even).

Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley are not even worth mentioning here. Both of them do not bring any depth to the tyrant teacher roles they were intrusted with. They would probably annoy you more as characters if Ender himself wasn’t twice as annoying.

There’s little good to say about ENDER’s GAME. The Steven Jablonsky soundtrack is beautiful but repetitive. The visual effects are stunning, but when most things that happen on screen are just silly training, the effects seem redundant. The idea of allegory of war where one can understand the enemy so well that starts loving him falls on deaf ear. All because the movie is so detached, emotionless and boring. The original book, that featured the future of much elder Ender had so much more in store!

Imagine Hunger Games with no Hunger Games or love triangle (or any romance for that matter) and you will have a pretty good idea what Ender’s Game is like. At the end you feel as if you had been watching someone else playing an Xbox game for two hours. Badly.

A true disappointment indeed.