Ender's Game

As we get older, the cast of films seem to be getting younger. Ah, as it is with life. However, in "Ender's Game", youth does play an integral part of the plot. But I can't help but think that since a huge part of the movie watching audience is the 18-34 year old demographic, films like "After Earth", "Pacific Rim", the "Hunger Games" franchise, the "Twilight Saga" franchise, and the like become more popular than ever.

The Earth is ravaged by the Formics, an alien race seemingly determined to destroy humanity. Seventy years later, the people of Earth remain banded together to prevent their own annihilation from this technologically superior alien species.
Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a quiet but brilliant boy, may become a hope of the human race. He is separated from his beloved sister, Valentine (Abigail Breslin) and terrifying brother, Peter (Jimmy 'Jax' Pinchak) and recruited into battle school which is in orbit around Earth. Through instruction by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford), Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) and Sergeant Dap (Nonso Anozie), he will be tested and honed into an empathetic killer who begins to question and subsequently despise what he does as he learns to fight in hopes of saving Earth and his family.

Others to round out the cast are Hailee Steinfeld as Petra Arkanian, a classmate who shows him the ropes, Viola Davis as Major Gwen Anderson, Aramis Knight as Bean, Suraj Parthasarathy as Alai, Moises Arias as Bonzo Madrid, Khylin Rhambo as Dink Meeker, Conor Carroll as Bernard, Caleb Thaggard as Stilson, Cameron Gaskins as Slattery, and Gavin Hood as the Giant.

This was directed with an even balance of military strictness and human emotion by Gavin Hood ("A Reasonable Man" '99, "In Desert and Wilderness" '01, "Tsotsi" '05, "Rendition" '07, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" '09, "Tough Trade (TV movie) '10). This being a film about saving humanity, the combination of the two elements: strictness and emotion certainly spans the condition of what humanity is comprised of. This was written by Hood based on the book "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card, and other than a few inconsistencies in script, this was played out better than I ever dreamed of. This isn't a great film, but certainly a solid one--enough to keep me glued to the screen. Certainly the visual effects, predominantly created by Digital Domain didn't hurt this production, because they were effective without over shadowing the story which happens all too often in this particular genre.

Certainly if you plan on seeing this, I would opt to see it on the large screen, lest it will be lost on a DVD, for the visual ride is worth the price of admission alone.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                           Rated: PG-13                         114mins.