The visually stunning mediocre highlight reel of a great book.
That is the “Ender’s Game” movie.
Based on the novel by Orson Scott Card, the film will neither thrill fans of the book, nor will it cause them to swear to kill the director with a dull plastic spoon. Viewers unfamiliar with the story will encounter a heavy-handed, hurried, but mostly coherent and beautiful sci-fi movie.
The film’s script sets the tone for the entire film. It strings together the best lines from the book along a chain of mostly competent, sometimes stilted, dialogue.
Screenwriter Gavin Hood, also the director of the film, can’t seem to decide if he wants to beat his audience over the head with the book’s great lines or be so subtle that even the most obsessive Card fans will barely catch the references.
Hood’s script can’t seem to decide which subplot of the novel to emphasize, so every problem moving the movie forward feels forced. For those viewers already familiar with the book, this may not prove a problem. But those encountering this world of illegal third children, an international government and space fleet, genius preteens going to military school in space, alien invasions, and psychotic videogames (actually, who isn’t familiar with psychotic video games?) for the first time will find the film rushed, disjointed, and disorienting.
The awkwardness of the script somewhat minimizes the disparity between the acting skills of the movie’s lead and support cast by dragging both down to mediocrity. Minor characters, and even important ones, like the titular Ender’s sister Valentine, played by Abigail Breslin, are often flat, cookie-cutter interpretations of their characters.
The cast’s principals breathe some life into their one-dimensionally scripted roles. Asa Butterfield, whom you might recognize from his brilliant performance in 2011’s “Hugo,” plays Ender Wiggin in the film and brings some of the clashing innocence and wisdom of the character to life. However, there are still scenes that neither he nor Hailee Steinfeld — nominated for an Academy Award for her breakout role in “True Grit,” and playing Ender’s friend Petra Arkanian — can make convincing.
Harrison Ford plays Colonel Graff, a man of deep moral complexity in the novel, as a one-dimensional military crank. Thankfully, Viola Davis, Oscar nominated for her role in “The Help,” plays Major Anderson with refreshing grace and gentleness in the few scenes featuring her, and the incomparable and always delightful Ben Kingsley creates a compelling character out of Mazer Rackham in the brief period he appears on screen.
The film is visually stunning. The art and design of a not-so-distant future is both beautiful and believable. The costumes, sets, and special effects all stand out and indicate a commitment to craftsmanship in the creation of the universe Card wrote about in 1985. Alien architecture, a space station housing a school, a null gravity battle room, these all look right. Even the psychotic videogame looks just like it should.
Hood set a monumentally difficult task before himself when he decided to adapt “Ender’s Game.” Viewed through the eyes of a child and the military personnel around him, the book is heavy and dark. It spans years and explores far too many sub stories and philosophical themes to be translated entirely into a single movie. In this case, it required what appears to be a horrendously intimidating, focused adaptation. Characters had to be combined: Ender couldn’t start as a 6 year-old, so he and the other children are adolescent throughout. Of course, the novel’s plot needed trimming; this is a movie.
Hood gave a good effort. There have been great movie adaptations of contemporary authors’ sci-fi and fantasy books; “Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince” was one, “The Hunger Games” another. Both recognized the limitations of a two hour film, embraced them, and found a focused version of the key events of the book to represent on screen.
Hood almost finds that balance. Almost. Instead, he produced a glossed summary of the book that never quite clicks.
It will have to do.
