MOVIE REVIEW - Enders Game

The book was huge, and the movie budget was huge too.  And here comes Enders Game, the much anticipated Sci-Fi flick new this week.

I will lay it out on the line right up front.  If you really like to watch kids play video games by peering over their shoulders...then this is your movie.  Because, that's exactly what it is.  Sometimes reading something and seeing it on screen are two completely different things.  That is the situation we have here.

Long story short, in the near future, Earth is attacked by an alien race named the Formics.   As they are conquering the Earth, a hero named Mazor Rackman (Ben Kingsley) pulls of a huge military move, and destroys the mother alien ship, and the Earth is saved.   Flash forward 50 years and the threat of the Formics attacking Earth again is always on everyone's mind, especially the new military.  They have decided that the smartest and brightest children are the most capable of leading us into battle. (They sort of explain this, but not very well).  So they recruit great young minds.   Including a young boy named Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield).  

He, according to the lead Colonel (Harrison Ford)  is THE one to lead the battle with the Formics.  So what you have to do is sit and watch Ender and his friend Petra (Hailee Steinfeld)  and the rest of the young recruits train for the big day.   To be honest that is the basic story here.   Oh, don't get me wrong they try real hard to make very loud social commentary about war, the military and the strategies that go along with it.  And there are plenty of stereotypes that are reinforced in this movie.

You know, so many movies set far into the future have no real imagination in story lines. It amazes me that the writers and movie makers are so aware of what they CAN do on film, the forget what they COULD do on screen.   So many of these stories lack any real vision of what could be.  By and large nothing is really well though out, and you would think you are watching a movie set in the 1980's instead of the late 21st century.  Sure, there are plenty of special effects of all kinds, and that will thrill many, but there is nothing new here you haven't seen before a hundred times.

In about 100 years, we are still driving cars that look exactly like today's cars (Audi is used here).  We still shoot guns that look sort of like the guns of today, only they shoot lazers or something.  Houses on earth look like they were built in 1980, and well the list goes on.  Silly really.  No real originality.

You essentially watch these kids play video games, and see them blend in with the special effects.  Truth be told, this is a horrible waste of Ford's talent, Viola Davis' talent and Steinfeld who was badly miscast as a small side character.  She actually would have been better in the lead.   I am not going to knock a childhood actor like Butterfield, he was fine.  But having a young girl as the savior of the Earth would have at least shown SOME imagination.  You get to see Kingsley for about 30 minutes, so that's a waste, and by the time you see him show up, you may be too far gone to care. The wonderful Abigail Breslin is wasted here too as Enders sister. But my feeling is, there is a far more prominent role for her in the next movie, same for Stienfeld.

This movie will be very popular with a young audience that lives the video game life, as they wish for a video game so large.   They also will care little about the lack of imagination, and the social stuff will go way over their heads.  They are there for the effects.  And being totally fair, there is absolutely nothing hew here as far as that is concerned.  Brace yourself, there are going to be more of these, as it is set up nicely for that.  Lovely.

Enders Game.   Exceptionally over casted,  and offering nothing really new.   Maybe there is just too much of this stuff for any of it to look original right now.