Review: Ender’s Game

In the future, Earth is at war with aliens known as Formics, and in order to win the war, a radical strategy has been adopted of training youngsters to be the military strategists to turn the tide in our favour and defeat the enemy. They seem to have the instincts, sharp reflexes, and aptitude for strategy necessary for a successful military campaign. One such bright young hopeful is Ender (Asa Butterfield), who unlike his compassionate older sister (Abigail Breslin) and frankly psycho older brother, has what Col. Graff (Harrison Ford) sees as a real aptitude for military strategy. The kid might just have the right stuff that not only helps defeat the alien enemy, but make so there are no further attacks. So off to Battle School he goes, joining other youngsters in cyber warfare training. Hailee Steinfeld plays Petra, just about the only other recruit whom Ender bonds with. Nonso Anozie essentially plays the drill sergeant of the recruits, Viola Davis is the relatively compassionate Major Anderson (who worries about the mental and emotional strain training has on the youngsters), and Sir Ben Kingsley plays stoic Maori warrior Mazer Rackham, whose brave efforts have at least kept humanity in the fight thus far.

 

Although I hear fans of the Orson Scott Card novel were unimpressed with this 2013 adaptation, and the film flopped at the box-office (possibly because of the bizarre and often very conflicting political and religious views held by Card), I’ve gotta say I rather enjoyed this classic piece of sci-fi entertainment. Written and directed by Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi”, “Rendition”, the disappointing “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”), it sure as shit ain’t no “Battlefield Earth”, though it’s still pretty far off “Star Wars” (and probably not as good as “Pacific Rim”, either).

 

There’s something really interesting and creepy here about recruiting youngsters and training them for intergalactic combat. Ender gets recruited not for fighting back against a bully, but for his tactical approach to it. He’s willing to fight, but he’s also able to strategise to make sure he gives himself the best chance to win the fight. But make no mistake, whatever thought-provoking themes are going on here (and no matter how stupefyingly strange Card’s anti-war message is here in light of his later stance on Dubya and the Iraq war), this really is boys’ own adventure stuff, classic sci-fi adventure material that will definitely appeal to the young and young at heart. At least, that’s how I felt about it.

 

Perhaps best of all, the young characters in this film not only seemed mostly tweens, but are played by actors who look young enough to pass for tweens. No Kristen Stewarts or Robert Pattinsons here, and thankfully barely a hint of tween-age romance in the whole thing. This may have reminded me of some of the stuff I was into when I was young, but I don’t believe Card’s work was intended as YA fiction or anything, at least not in the sense of “Twilight” and other such nonsense.

 

Asa Butterfield continues to impress as an actor, he’s very well-cast here. He also seems to be morphing into a mixture of Elijah Wood and Frankie Muniz. Can anyone else see the resemblance? At any rate, I think Butterfield is really one to watch over the next decade. Harrison Ford isn’t doing anything new here, but as the gruff and grumpy mentor, he’s well-cast and not as one-dimensionally grouchy as he has been elsewhere of late. Nonso Anozie also proves an amusing and interesting choice for what is essentially a more family friendly version of R. Lee Ermey or a modern Harry Andrews-type role. I do have to take issue with the casting of Moises Arias as Butterfield’s chief antagonist. His performance is genuinely good, that’s not the problem. The problem is he looks about half Butterfield’s size, and Asa ain’t Andre the Giant to begin with. It’s just a weird and unconvincing visual. I find Viola Davis a tad overrated as an actress, but she’s clearly much more invested in this material than she was “Beautiful Creatures”, and has a slightly more interesting role. Sir Ben Kingsley probably should not have been cast here as a Maori war hero who instructs the young hero. His accent isn’t perfect- there’s some Seth Effriken and cockney in there- but he most certainly doesn’t disgrace himself in the part. My issue is that this would be the role Temuera Morrison was born for, and failing him you could cast Cliff Curtis, Karl Urban, Sam Neill, hell even Russell Freakin’ Crowe could’ve had a crack at it. He was at least born in New Zealand (We claim him as an Aussie, however). Kingsley simply isn’t the best person for the job, and it’s obvious. Still, if you want to see Kingsley really disgrace himself, you won’t find that here. Watch “A Sound of Thunder” instead (Or better yet, just take my word for it that he’s awful in it and skip the film. Everyone else ignored it). Oscar-nominee Hailee Steinfeld is merely OK, she’s seemingly going through that awkward phase of becoming a young woman, or at least was during shooting. There’s not much room for her to move in her role and she’s not especially memorable. Abigail Breslin is similarly underused, but certainly more accomplished in her performance than Steinfeld, which is understandable given her experience and given her character is a tad more interesting. I did find it interesting that the important familial relationship in the film is between brother and sister, not brother/brother or children/parents. That’s not something you often see in films, and I appreciated that.

 

The game sequences aren’t really my bag, but this sure as shit ain’t “Rollerball”, “Tron”, or Quidditch, either. They’re kinda interesting. I do have to say, though, that the film is a bit like “Top Gun” in focussing on training for far too long rather than giving us the real deal. However, at least in this case, there’s a reason for that, eventually revealed. Still, it does leave one feeling just a tad impatient. The ending will be too gooey for some, but I thought it was fine. The film has been really well-shot by Aussie pro Don McAlpine (“Don’s Party”, “Breaker Morant”, “Predator”), it’s not remotely shaky and thankfully very classically shot. It’s a gorgeous, crisp-looking film. The music score by Steve Jablonsky (“Friday the 13^th”, “Your Highness”) is also pretty good, at times reminding me of “Game of Thrones”. I seem to say that a lot, though.

 

Honestly, aside from the controversial opinions of the author of the source material, the only reason for this film’s box-office mediocrity is perhaps the fact that the source material was written in 1985, and is also not really considered YA fiction (crap like “Twilight”, “The Hunger Games”, etc.) Perhaps the lack of rabid tweener females already built-in as an audience really does make a difference. On its own merits, it’s a solid, pretty well old-school sci-fi adventure film. Yes there are some weighty themes going on here, but they are handled in a less clumsy or absurd fashion than the modern crop of YA fiction adaptations. Give this one a go, it may be clichéd, but it’s pretty entertaining stuff.

 

Rating: B-