Ender’s Game

Based on the book by Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game follows Asa Butterfield’s title character as he’s recruited by an esteemed military man (Harrison Ford’s Colonel Graff) to participate in an ongoing war against otherworldly creatures – with the film primarily detailing the many battle simulations and exercises in which Ender is forced to participate. There’s little doubt that Ender’s Game fares much, much better than Card’s surprisingly dull novel, as filmmaker Gavin Hood employs a strikingly cinematic feel that does, for the most part, compensate for the source material’s repetitive and uninvolving atmosphere. It’s a feat that’s made all-the-more-impressive by Hood’s remarkable faithfulness to Card’s 1985 book, with the film’s narrative retaining most of the original story’s beats and plot twists – which, in turn, paves the way for a stagnant midsection that seems to revolve entirely around the aforementioned simulations (ie it’s just one fight after another). Butterfield’s competent yet far-from-charismatic performance perpetuates the movie’s pervasively uneven vibe, and it’s clear that Hood has his work cut out for him in terms of recovering the viewer’s waning attention in the buildup to the final battle. But that battle, when it does arrive, is admittedly quite exciting and worth the wait, with the effectiveness of this stretch heightened by an unexpectedly gripping scene between Butterfield and Ford’s respective characters. It’s a last-minute save that ultimately secures Ender’s Game‘s place as a better-than-expected adaptation, with the anticlimactic conclusion unable to entirely dampen what is otherwise a strong (and impressively gripping) climax.

**1/2 out of ****