El juego de Ender

I hesitated to watch this movie for a long time - reason being my endless love for the adapted book, which is my absolute favorite. It is needed to be said in the review, because even with all the effort it is impossible for me to review the movie without influence of the book.

Movie did actually better job than I expected. I liked the cast of the main characters, Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield. Both did very good job. A big positive surprise for me was the visual aspect of the movie, I liked it actually so much, it is the main reason, why I keep my rating for the movie so high despite the negatives.

The biggest problem of the Ender's Game adaptation is the race against the time. The movie tries to squeeze huge amount of information in a short time and it just does not work. I cannot imagine, how I would feel without having any background information from the book. Even if we can discuss whether the "Earth" sideline with Ender's siblings has to or doesn't have to be in the movie (it does not), there is the main storyline describing Ender's time spend in Battle school and it is handled so shallowly and quickly, it hurts. This story just needs more space. Without it there is almost no character development. No emotions towards side characters, like Bean or Petra or all the others, barely recognizable for the viewer. Even the great ending is ripped of emotions partially because of it. I felt all the aspects of the movie are more handled as trailers to that aspect than actually diving into it. And it is a pity.

It was still a nice experience, seeing the universe come to life.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down!

It seems as though all the great sci-fi takes forever to become films. It took over seventy years to give John Carter his big-screen debut. I had a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth that claimed that it would become a motion picture soon, but that never happened until almost twenty years later (and many would probably argue that it should not have been made). Ender's Game is another one of the best sci-fi novels I've read, and a film for it has been in development for something like ten years. So, in 2013, I couldn't have been more excited.

Ender's Game is kinda like The Hunger Games set in outer space, only more aggressive, more fantastic, and more original. EG has its fair share of special-effects-laden spectacle, with massive swarms of spaceships and incredible planetscapes filling up the screen. Fortunately, it's not all just action for the sake of action, it is all a direct consequence of the story. When the space battles aren't breaking out, the film still moves very fast with loads of character-driven conflicts.

The film still maintains most of its focus on telling the story, and it does hit up all the necessary plot points that were in the original novel. Some major subplots get cut out, the training/battle scenes are truncated, and various other liberties are taken, but for a two-hour movie, the filmmakers did their best to cover the entire plot, right up to its bizarre ending. A lot of scenes are exactly as I pictured them from reading the book (even the fantasy CGI mindgame scenes, which I always fancied should be animated Pixar style, and it turns out they were!), and the dark aggression of the book is mostly translated well into the film. Best of all, the book's biggest twists still bear some decent weight in the movie's narrative.

Unfortunately, some things are lost in translation. Just as it is with The Hunger Games, the specific nuances of the characters, their relationships, their emotions, and their overall pathos is better conveyed in the narrative of the book than it is on film. Ender's relationships with his friends (and even his enemies) are left at the surface level, and never really reaches the same depths as the novel. Some things remain unexplained or glossed over. Deeper themes are never fully explored. Although one can't expect every single thing in the book to make it into the film, EG falls just a little short in immersing the audience in the characters. It may be easy to root for Ender when he stands up to his bullies and commands a whole fleet, but the film won't leave that much of a lasting impression.

As a film, it looks pretty slick and stylish, with solid photography and editing. Acting can be rather mixed: I think all of the child actors did their jobs really well. Harrison Ford gets the most grief for his role, for he pretty much phones it in, but I still didn't think he was as terrible as other reviewers make him out to be. Ben Kingsley plays it kinda creepily in his role, and Viola Davis is pretty much herself. Writing in this film is okay, but has a rather bad penchant for exposition. This production has some good-looking sets, props, costumes, and special effects. The music score is not bad either.

As usual, the book is better than the movie, but I think the movie still does a good job as an adaptation. I expect that average audiences unfamiliar with the book will think this movie is okay, but might miss out on certain nuances. Book fans might gripe that the film doesn't do justice to certain things. In any case, I think the movie is worth a rent to all dedicated sci-fi fans.

4/5 (Entertainment: Very Good | Story: Good | Film: Pretty Good)

This movie was actually really good! I thoroughly enjoyed it, the characters were great, storyline was intriguing, and acting was good. I expected a 6.6 movie, but got one way better than that.

I'll begin by saying that I haven't read the book and had absolutely no idea what to expect. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by what is an exciting science fiction adventure.

Harrison Ford is the reason I watched this, and he is first rate. It might be argued that Ford is playing to the gruff stereotype he has essayed in any number of recent films, but I like this performance.

The younger members of the cast were unfamiliar to me, but they acquit themselves well. I was drawn into the story and the emoitional journey within.

The visuals are stunning. Even the most cynical or jaded critic cannot deny the movie is beautiful to watch. Worth the cost of a movie ticket.

The box-office failure of big budget (110m$) book adaptation 'Ender's Game' doesn't bode well for the future of my favorite movie genre. Writer Orson Scott Card has had many offers since the book release in 1985 to turn it into a film. He rejected many of them because of creative differences and because most Studios insisted on making Ender older (in the book he's 6 to 10 years old). There were plans in 2003 by Warner Brothers to let Wolfgang Petersen have a go at it with a script written by Card himself. Card's script was a fusion of 'Ender's Game' and 'Ender's Shadow'. In 2010 Gavin Hood got attached as director and screenwriter and the script became based on the first book again with plans to make it into a franchise or a TV series if successful. Unfortunately EG made only 112m$ worldwide (although it opened first place in the US with 27m$) so all future plans have been put on ice. It's really a shame because as far as science fiction flicks go this really is one of the better ones. The VFX were done by Digital Domain who also co-financed the film and they look absolutely stunning. This film will a good 4K showcase Blu-ray when they finalize the format at the end of 2014. The film follows the book quite closely but because of the time constraints of the film medium a lot of events had to be compressed and some subplots where eliminated. 113 mins really is too short, an extra 40 mins or so would have let more room to expand on Ender's training etc. Altogether I think most fans of the book will be happy with the end result but it it just lacks the depth the book had to offer. So hopefully they make a 3 hour extended version (depending on how much material they shot) on BD to give the story more time to breathe.