Ender's Game

3.5 Stars (out of four)

I know there have been a bunch of 3.5 star ratings lately, but we have really hit a spate of good movies in the past few weeks.  Let's hope the trend continues.  A few months ago, I had no idea what this movie was about.  I had never read Orson Scott Card's seminal sci-fi novel yet.  However, a friend of mine mentioned around March that this was the film she was most anticipating this year.  When she heard I had not read the book, she chided me and told me I needed to read it immediately.  Now, while I usually make it a rule not to read a book before I see a movie because I am inevitably let down by the adaptation, I'm glad I did in this case.

Ender's Game starts way in the future, 50 years after a race of aliens called the Formics invaded Earth and nearly wiped out humanity in the process.  We were able to turn the tide of the battle with the heroic efforts bt the commander, Mazor arak jam, but just barely.  During the war, we lost tens of millions of people.  Since then, the International Fleet (a sort of global defense force), has been forcibly recruiting the best and brightest of Earth's children to become the next genius commander that will be able to finish the fight by taking it to the Formics home world.  They put these kids through various battle and command schools figuring that since children can process complex information more quickly than adults, this is a way we can breed the perfect commander.  I don't want to tell much more of the story in order not to give too much away, but needless to say, the main character, Ender Wiggen (played surprisingly well by Asa Butterfield) goes through the schools and we follow his training and evolution into a commander.

As I said, I'm glad I first read the book this time.  Normally, I am able to divorce myself from the experience of the book versus the movie because I understand the trade offs you have to make in adapting a 300+ page novel into a 120-minute movie.  You have to condense events, combine characters, etc, to tell a coherent story in a timeframe an audience can be expected to sit through.  But this is highly subjective depending on the audience.  With a hard-core fan base like The Lord Of The Rings, people will endure a butt-busting three or more hours at a clip, but most audiences won't, and thus you have to cut.  The problem is, with a book that is as dense as Ender's Game, where there is a big emphasis on psychology, this is very difficult to coherently portray on screen, especially for the non-initiated.  While this movie is good, it does rely a little too much on you having some familiarity with the source material.  Those who haven't read the book may get a little lost as there is not a lot of explanatory exposition.  But, the movie makes a good attempt, and succeeds for the most part, on exploring the morality of command and warfare.  It attempts to show a battlefield leader must have the right amounts of both ruthlessness and empathy in order to be effective.  It also looks at the morality of war.  Is it ever justified and how far is too far?  Do the ends outweigh the means?  Obviously, the book goes into much greater detail, but all of the important elements are in the movie.

On a final note, if you get a chance, I would recommend the IMAX version.  While it is not necessary to see it this way, there are some really good scenes where the IMAX size makes a difference in the experience of the film.  Overall, the movie is enjoyable and thought-provoking, and even a little fun.