Ender's Game

As usual, I haven't read the book for this, so I'm going entirely based on the movie here. I know, I know. I really need to pick up a book or two more often. I really miss reading for pleasure.

Ender's Game is a good, albeit strange, movie. It has a cool, if not necessarily big or expansive, story, following a boy raised in peace time in a militaristically proud society. The invasion of Earth by the alien enemy happened 50 years previous to the events of the film, but the army continues to build itself in fear of the alien's return. It has an obvious allusion to our involvement overseas (whether or not this was the same context for the book obviously I don't know, but it would of course be with different policies in mind), questioning how much is too much in military protection, what "protection" really is, and of course bringing into question the moral ambiguity of the use of child soldiers. Obviously to us it's unthinkable, but this film does put the concept into a very believable scenario, one that almost leaves the audience not batting an eye.

But for all its brilliance, I have to admit I have some questions that were never really answered. I get that the game that was played was to demonstrate a certain way of thinking and a certain amount of leadership. But how exactly was this game demonstrating a strong leader for a full armada of spaceships? It's not like he really learned any skills in space battle, only battling with his own weightlessness? I don't want to give away the ending, but there's a BIG question I have regarding his training simulations. Give me a holler if you want to know that question, we'll avoid spoilers here. Although here's a weird little spoiler question - why were they so mad that he found the game section, wanted him blocked out, and yet continued to watch? Confused...

Ben Kingsley is an awesome actor with a super cool character. But again, this character raised more questions than answers. How exactly is he there? Is that really all the explanation we're going to get? what am I missing to let me really get this story? As always, I put no fault on the book. This is problems with a script, things that were left out that probably could have been left in or explained.

But all that aside, I loved the performances in this movie so much. Everyone gave 110% to deliver an awesome interpretation of deeply written characters, some giving far more interesting twists to characters than the sometimes bland script didn't deliver on. And that's not to say the script is bad - it had me react pretty strongly to some of the emotional displays. It's a successful movie. But I can't help feeling it could have worked far better.

Rank - 3/5