Ender's Game

Looking for a light, fun sci-fi action adventure with lots and lots of space battles and visual effects? Well, Ender’s Game is not the film you’re looking for. That’s not to say there isn’t any of that in the movie, but there’s more going on here. Darker stuff, actually, despite all the flashy visuals and sparkly clean future aesthetic on display.

Adapted from the multiple award-winning 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card, the movie takes place in the far future, 50 years after humanity repelled an invasion by an insect-like race called the Formics. Afterward, the world powers of the International Fleet began training the best and brightest (not to mention most brutal) children to lead the fight against this enemy. After all this is described in a short prologue, the story follows title character Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy outcast child with brilliant skills in war games, as he travels to battle school (on a giant space station orbiting Earth) and is groomed to become a commander. He thrives at the school’s battle drills and simulations, but will his conscience get in the way of his abilities to lead a real battle?

That appears to be the main thematic question, and the tone is so heavily militaristic that it seemingly leans decisively toward one side of the moral spectrum of violence and warfare. Card’s book is recommended reading for the U.S. Marines, and though I haven’t read it, it’s easy to see why from what made it to the screen. The battle school is run like a boot camp, but with less grueling physical drills and more strategic study. Yet the outcome of breaking down the participants and molding them into hardened fighters is the same. Butterfield credibly gets molded from meek but brilliant to ruthless, all the more effective because his ruthlessness is so understated that he even still seems nice and personable. The people in charge—played by acclaimed actors Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley, and Harrison Ford (unrecognizable from his usual righteous hero roles, and the closest thing to an antagonist in the picture)—are effectively sinister faces of the military machine. The fact that they’re all adults while the students are just kids is a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for loss of childhood innocence. We don’t get to know most of the students very well, but that might just be the point, emphasizing the dehumanization aspect.

It could have been a lot more disturbing in this exploration, but the movie doesn’t quite cross that threshold. There are two reasons for this, I believe. First, it’s a science fiction story where the enemies are aliens (and buggy ones at that), so though these themes still work, they’re categorically less potent than if it were about killing other humans. Second, the film is aiming for the teen young adult demographic, not looking to tell a complex psychological story. So while the plot’s meditation on militarism and violence is always apparent, it's still possible to push it aside.

Should you do that, you’re left with a well made and entertaining movie with a likable young cast. Director Gavin Hood manages to make the action exciting, even though it mostly consists of training exercises and battles that are apparently simulated. The special effects vary from good to just adequate, but this works because it highlights the aspect that all the battles are games. Some of the younger actors are obviously less experienced, but most do pretty well.

The only real flaw is that it’s clearly meant to be the first film in a franchise (the novel already has several sequels), and it feels as if the underlying implication is that the best is yet to come. Seeing Ender’s training but no real battles is like playing through the tutorial part of a video game and not getting to play any of the levels. Plus, the ending takes a turn that’s a bit confusing, knowingly so to implore the audience to come back for the next entry. But after this solid first entry, I won’t mind coming back again.