I expected to hate Ender’s Game. While I have fond memories of tearing through the book in a single day back in ninth grade, I’d been underwhelmed by the trailer, and Card’s published views on homosexuality left me with no desire to support the film. However, despite the film’s shortcomings, Ender’s Game is an entertaining sci-fi adventure.
Full credit goes to the film’s stars: Asa Butterfield as Ender and Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff. Butterfield shines as a brilliant but conflicted child who was unwanted at birth and is resented by his fellow Battle School recruits, All the child actors displayed acting talents far beyond their years. In particular, Disney Channel regular Moisés Arias excelled as Bonzo Madrid, Ender’s first commander. Arias sneered his way through every scene, and you could feel his hatred for Ender bleed through the screen. While not familiar with his work on Hannah Montana, I have to say, Arias makes a convincing bad guy. I only wish Ender’s other subordinates had received more screen time.
This kid has to be perfect for this role. He has to be dead inside after working on Hannah Montana!
While Harrison Ford has developed quite the robust grumpy-old-man persona, he is brilliant here as a authoritarian father figure, pushing his protoge as far as possible. (I was mildly amused to see another scene to add to the “Harrison Ford points at things” meme.) Ben Kingsley’s performance was less impressive, mostly due to his ethnically questionable casting. (Seriously: if the character is supposed to be half Maori, can we cast a half Maori? Or a full Maori. Anyone other than a guy from Yorkshire; I don’t care how many Oscars he has.).
I also enjoyed the movie’s visuals, The look and feel is very similar to Minority Report, which is no surprise, since supervising Art Director A. Todd Holland was a set designer for that movie. Ender’s Game felt both futuristic and familiar at the same time; props looked like natural extensions of current technology.
Book-to-movie adaptations are tricky. Novels adapted word for word are boring (The Fountainhead), novels that stray too far are condemned by fans (Watchmen). Hell, I’m still annoyed by the change to Misery where the main character shoots the police officer; in the book she ran over his head with a lawnmower.
While there was no way every line and subplot from the 384-page Ender’s Game would make it to the big screen, the film suffered by not including the Peter and Valentine subplot. In the book, Peter Wiggen is a ruthless genius who manipulates everyone around him in order to take over the world–and in the process saving humanity from itself. Film Peter is a one-note bully, reduced to beating Ender up early in the story. While his absence is no great loss to this film, if the writers had intended to make the Ender saga a franchise (which they could have done, since Card has written 13 books in the series), they missed out on setting up Peter’s political machinations. However, the poor box office take probably killed any hopes for a franchise.
Better than I expected: Asa Butterfield and Moisés Arias nailing the roles of Ender and Bonzo
Worse than I’d hoped: Peter Wiggen’s reduced role
Would work better as an HBO series? Yes, given the large cast, number of books in the series, and philosophical nature of the books.
Verdict: Good popcorn movie; don’t hold your breath for a franchise
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