Enders Game (2013) - Review Thread

I like it.

Here's my original review:

"The Enemy gate is down."

I had been trying to read Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, since I was in high school. A friend recommended it to me, and the premise immediately intrigued me, but other distractions kept putting it off. Fast forward to 2012 and with the announcement that the long awaited film adaptation was ACTUALLY happening (in addition to the constant hounding by another friend) I figured there was no time like the present to finally pick this up. It has fast become one of my favorite modern science fiction stories, and I was at once excited and worried about a big screen adaption. Will they age up the actors? Will the box office success of movies like Hunger Game and Twilight make them water it down to make it easily digestible? How will they treat the end? A lot of potential and a lot of potential disappointment.

Thankfully, this isn’t Hunger Games in space. It’s strives to be broader than that. You could argue the book is a bit of a precursor to all of these young adult series flooding the market right now, but I don’t consider it a young adult story. Yes, its narrative is centered around children but the themes and ideas are much more complex than what I’ve found in most modern YA. Not even Harry Potter got close to the ideas discussed in the essays of Demosthenes and Locke. Ender’s trials and tribulations make the transition more or less intact. There are differences and omissions, but they are carefully chosen and executed. Bean is introduced much earlier and has more initial influence, "The Giant’s Drink" game has been pared down but still retains its pivotal foresight, and not surprisingly, the Demosthenes and Locke subplot is completely nixed altogether. While it loses a little bit of its depth, it keeps the pacing brisk and the narrative steady.

One of the reasons it’s taken Ender so long to get off the ground was the fight surrounding the age of the characters. In the book, we meet Ender at the tender age of 6 years old and follow him though his training until he’s about 10. The idea being that you have very young children expected to fight for something they barely understand, and the resulting consequences. However, for obvious reasons, aging the actors up is much more practical for film. I don’t know many six year olds actors that can hold an icy stare the way Asa does. Regardless, they still look like children. Asa Butterfield’s skinny limbs and freckled features constantly remind us he is indeed still a child, being told to act and think like an adult. In fact, all of the child actors in this are pretty good. Director Gavin Hood manages to draw out their performances with great poise. Their casting is also true to the book. In a world where the Prince of Persia, and more recently, The Shedder have been white washed for reasons I will not get into here, it’s refreshingly diverse cast without loudly declaring that is it so.

Asa Butterfield is a good actor, and he will become a great one if he so chooses. His slight frame manages to command the stage against both heavy weights Ben Kingsley (steady as always) and Harrison Ford, who himself turns in some of the strongest work I’ve seen him do in years. Both of these relationships are the crucial to the story and even though Mazer and Ender are given less time, it’s used judicially and effectively. Voila Davis, Nonso Anozie and Abigail Breslin turn equally strong performances.

From a technical stand point, this movie is a beauty. The CGI and art direction are some of the best I’ve seen this year. I’ve never been a huge proponent of 3-D but this is a rare exception where I think it could have been used to great effect. With the Battle Room sequences and the gigantic, high definition simulations, a sense of depth and scale would have been thrilling. However, I think the money saved keeping this in two dimensions was very well spent on the special effects. My only complaint is I wanted a few more Battle Rooms scenes, but that’s just me being greedy. I also really enjoyed the music, which I find interesting since it comes from the guy who did all three bombastically overdrawn Transformers film. Rather here its motion and weight work with the action of the scene instead of trying to overcompensate for it.

Overall, I left satisfied. I will admit there were moments where I fell into the trap of reconciling the actions of book with what was happening on screen, but there wasn’t a moment where I felt cheated or disappointed. Nearly all the moments I wanted to see were presented deftly and none of the changes were distracting. I had the added benefit of seeing this with those who had read the book and those who had not. The readers seemed equally pleased and nonreaders were genuinely thrilled. For a story that has been trying to get on the big screen for over a decade, they do a remarkably fine job.

8/10

You've made JBond a happy man.