Ender's Game (2013)

Better Late Then Never

An absolute waste of money

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The novel Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, may just be the best work of fiction ever produced. The motion picture on the other hand, does what it can do to translate a nearly unflimable movie.A lot of the other reviews do accurately capture the quality of the movie. The adaptation does remain very faithful to the book, unlike examples. (such as World War Z, The Bourne Identity, V for Vendetta). The things that they do change make a good deal of sense. Omitting Locke and Demosthenes, making all the characters older, and combining other characters (Crazy Tom, Fly Molo, and those guys are absorbed by Alai and Bernard) were all good decisions. The visuals do a heck of a job, and most of the performances are up to standard.However, while greatly capturing the plot, the film falls short in recreating the heart, but this is consequence of the nature of the novel itself. You see, the main character isn't so much Ender Wiggin as it is the mind of Ender Wiggin. The movie just isn't able to make the complete translation, and can be somewhat stale (somewhat analogous to Watchmen). In addition, iconic lines, such as "The enemies gate is down", are delivered with a certain staleness, and only seem to be there just to be there. The movie is indeed too short, and it would have been nice if they showed the passing of time (respects to other reviewers).If you've read the book, then this movie will be a decent 100 minutes of your time, and will bring back lots of great memories. If you haven't read the book (read it!), you're not missing too much.

I read the book before seeing the movie, and this is one of the few movies based on a book that stays true to the novel its based off of. Plot - The problem with this movie is that it is too short. I know that not everything that was in the book can be in the movie, but a lot of what they did include was a bit rushed. This kinda makes that overlong boring action scene thing at the end even more annoying. Overall though, this movie retains most of the nuance and intelligence from the book and was extremely entertaining to watch. This movie has an extremely effective twist that is only ruined if you have read the book. Characters - The child actors are actually very good for the most part. Most of the characters are intelligent, making the story very enjoyable. The characters are interesting, though a few of them could've been better developed. Sights and Sounds - The cinematography in this movie is great, as well as the sound design. The effects are all pretty good, except for some dream/game sequences that were so bad that my DVD player automatically decided to skim through them (I didn't touch the remote, the player just skipped past those terrible sequences).Action - The action scenes in this movie are clever and entertaining. Overall, this is a very entertaining movie that I would highly recommend.

I've read the books years ago (and should have stopped at the first one, but that's beside the point.) The movie managed to show most of the key points of the story. The parts that, in my opinion, are the steps marking an evolution to the next level. This is impressive given the movie is not even two hours long, but of course there is a cost. The biggest reproach I have is the lack of build-up. Everything feels rushed. The genius of the book, beside the twist(s), is the psychological development of Ender, the manipulations he is the subject of, the monstrosity of the adults and of the other children and ultimately his own. Where is the cold revelation of a few hidden deaths ? Where are the mysteries surrounding a weird trainer, and the very smart reason this Mr Mysterious, once revealed, is not too old? All gone.On its purely technical qualities, the acting was good. Harrison Ford of course but also the children that I didn't find annoying like I usually do. The image and special effects were good and measured and the music from Steve Jablonsky was very enjoyable.In my opinion, the movie is probably not very good for whoever didn't read the book first. But for me, when all is said and done, it was a kind of lazy trip through the memory lane of one of the best book I've ever read.

A fairly boring movie with fairly bad acting. Ridiculous superiors pretty much every one of them. Useless training method for the war taking up most of the screen time and not developing the story to the point where it feels it's almost nonexistent. The movie is too short to develop the story, but it's actually a good thing since it's quite boring.Plotwise there is only one good point. Harrison Fords acting wasn't bad, even though his their logic for Ender is a stretch at best. Visual effects are good. All in all a B class movie which might as well have been made with under 1/100 of the cost. A real shame.