I admit I am kind of happy to see the beginning of the film verbatim as it was in the book.
This film feels G-rated, unlike the intellectually sophisticated, elegant and violent story that it is based on.
Valentine Wiggin (Abigail Breslin) is frail and empty as a character. Ender (Asa Butterfield) is weak and flimsy. Not the brilliant tactician from the book, who grows up in Battle School, to form relationships – deep bonds with his classmates, some of whom were once enemies. This part of the movie moves so fast, there is no time to develop and ingest these emotions.
Ender is not his real name. It is the nickname given to him by his sister who couldn't pronounce Andrew when they were kids. This among other things, is lost on the film.
Graff (Harrison Ford) is pathetic. He’s supposed to be a tough, callous, aggressive and powerful commander. He just looks tired. He’s meant to be the most intelligent adult in the school, the only one smart enough to know that none of them are half as smart as these kids.
Sir Ben Kingsley screws up Mazer Rackham’s character by playing it straight. Something as quirky as Sexy Beast could have worked.
Dialogue is taken as written from the book without context, presence of character or the psychology of a knowing delivery.
Battle School is where Ender escapes the sadistic and possibly psychotic Peter, who is supposed to be a monster, yet he appears in the film as merely an aggressive bully.
Battle School is where Bean escapes the murderous Achilles (who killed Po, the only person who had ever shown Bean kindness thus far.) It is also an escape from the poverty and starvation of life on the streets of Rotterdam for a skinny, tiny weak little brat, not worth a bean.
In the book, we see how Ender aggressively matures into a young man – a Captain, then a General; a ruthless killer, but a good man; a good soldier. His ascent through Battle School moves by so fast, that people are showing him respect when he didn’t have time to do anything to earn that respect.
Ender is a genius. All the kids in Battle School are geniuses. Ender and his friends are the best of the best, but we need to see this. In the film, Ender comes off as a whiny pussy.
Understanding the aliens is vital, but there is no time for this, there is barely enough time to communicate the relationships in Battle School and the emotional struggles of a few key characters, which fail.
The visual effects for the Giant’s Drink are decent.
Bonzo Madrid (Moises Arias) is a powerful little villain, love the nose. He seems wasted as a character, on a lack of well-prepared situations.
The naked shower fight is supposed to be fatal by design. With this fight resulting in an accident, Ender isn’t changed by the event in the same way. He is not a ruthless killer, surviving rather than submitting. He hasn’t grown up, in this moment.
Petra (Hailee Steinfeld) is a fun character but their friendship barely has time to form. There could have been room for this Battle School period, (which is a large part of the book; and quickly summarised in the movie – losing a lot of the effect,) to be stylised like the military complete with horrific undertones – humiliation, rape, torture, gangs, drugs, embarrassing diseases, maiming, black market, gambling, perversion.
Sticking it to Bonzo by being a better soldier in the Battle Room is satisfying, despite the mundane neons and predictable camera angles.
A Gavin Hood film is bound to look polished. I’m surprised the writing is so weak, adapting to writing for adaptation must be tough.
Unfortunately, he misses out on the opportunities to sell the story with style. Gavin’s transplant of exposition and dialogue from the book is just weak writing, rather than the expression of concepts and characters.
Gavin, perhaps, should have made more cuts, chosen the best concepts and story points and told the best story he could instead of trying to shove everything in.
The Giant’s Drink in the Adventure Game is the best source of drama in the movie. The battle with the aliens/Buggers/Formics, is a great climax, but it’s not the main point of the story. And the secret about the ‘training simulations’ is given away far too easily in the film, when it’s a really cool punchline for the characters in the book.
In the film, we don’t realise that it was Bean who chose the members of Dragon Army for Ender.
The Battle Room in the book, drives Ender and his men to exhaustion, he gives up. He’s had enough. He makes a suicidal effort to throw out all the rules, and miraculously takes the victory, with Bean by his side. ‘The enemy’s gate is down.’
This situation is repeated against the Formics, in an unbeatable situation, Ender and the men (and Petra) are exhausted, sleep-deprived, almost insane, Bean reminds Ender, ‘The enemy’s gate is down.’ It doesn’t mean anything, but it gives Ender the push he needs to throw it all out and launch a crazy attack.
In the movie, Ender and his men never look like they’ve even had a decent workout, let alone torture-level exhaustion, while being forced to beat impossible odds. And winning.
It would be nice if Ender was the ruthless tactician from the books, instead of this whining child. Ender from the books would kick his ass. He would never let himself cry, or be seen as vulnerable.
Now if Ender in the movie had really gone toe to toe with Graff and impressed our humble viewer, it may have been enough to carry the film. But this child has no idea how to stand up to Harrison Ford.
It could have been better, despite the story being ruined in its lazy adaptation, like a child’s translation of A Christmas Carol, for his inebriated Whanau (who refuse to stand up for the play.)
Overall, this movie is disappointing. The books are excellent, especially Speaker for the Dead, Ender's Shadow, Children of the Mind, Xenocide and the first one of course. The movie is just not staunch and macabre like the book. And without that, the movie feels empty.
It fails in the way that Fellowship of the Ring succeeded. A movie with a sentimental young adventure where there's no sex, drugs or rock and roll and you aim to make money at the cinema. For this reason some thought Fellowship would fail. But if you're going to not deliver on some of the edgier aspects of the book you've got to fill the empty space with something, you can't just expect average uncommitted acting to save the day. Especially when the film doesn't involve any real drama - most of the book is about Ender's growth as a soldier in battle school - his inner turmoil as he deals with having killed twice before and feels like he’s becoming his older brother who is a monster who tortures domestic animals.
And the younger sister is supposed to be an intellectual equal to Ender yet also an angel in his eyes. Seeing yourself as a killer and dealing with that murderer side of yourself at such a young age, is really just brushed over because the audience was expected to be children. Yet the book is all about how a child deals with adult soldier conflicts. This story is not for children, to think that it was, is Gavin's most grand mistake.
1 star
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