Blu-ray Review – Ender’s Game (2013)

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Ender's -Game BDEnder’s Game, based on human trigger warning Orson Scott Card’s series of books, came out last year to indifferent shrugs and barely managed to cover its production costs. I didn’t get to see it first time round, so got to experience it for the first time on Blu-ray. Is it a misunderstood gem or a deserving bomb? Well, neither really.

Ender’s Game tells the story of a far off future where humanity gets attacked and has its arse handed to it by an alien race known as the Formics. We only survive thanks to the heroic sacrifice of Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) who rammed his ship into their control ship and blew it up. 50 years later, we catch up with Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a promising young cadet, who like most children/adolescents his age are being trained for war and the return of the Formics from an early age. Colonel Hyram Graff (Harrison Ford) sees promise in young Ender and decides to keep an eye on him as he progresses through the ranks of military school. Asa Butterfield is a great actor, but I’m not sure the script accounted for that. I get that Ender is meant to be like a detached genius prodigy but some more emotion would have been nice. It’s certainly not a bad performance, just rather flat, but that’s the writing’s fault, not Butterfield’s. Harrison Ford does the sour-faced, grumbling turn he’s been doing for some time now, but it works. Ben Kingsley is also fun, as are Ender’s cohorts.

Ender’s Game is a rather frustrating film. Much like the gruff Graff with young Ender, I see great potential within. There are things in this film that preach almost entirely to my personal choir. I love slow, methodical sci-fi like this, for one. This isn’t just a “Sod it, we’re in space, bring on the lasers!” type film. It takes its time to build a world and immerse us in it. At some points, it is downright weird and I can’t help but warm to it because of that. It’s not just a whiz bang adventure with plenty of CGI stuff happening, it’s got stuff to say about war and social issues and does a good job of it. The big training sequences are highlights, combining impressive effects with genuine fun.

What lets the film down is the scripting and the pace. The writing definitely needed tightening up before it was shipped off to the CGI people. It’s not terrible, but it’s generic and deadly serious. There are some moments of levity, but they feel like concessions, rather than organic parts of the film. I’m all for sci-fi taking its time, but even I was finding the pace hard-going. It’s glacial. It feels like forever between fun sequences when in reality it’s probably only 15 minutes. By the end, you’ll have probably checked out, which is a shame as the third act is decent.

Ender’s Game is an odd one. I found myself wanting to like it for what it was attempting to do, rather than what it actually does. With a tighter script and a more controlled sense of pace and purpose, Ender’s Game could have been something special. However, it ends up a schizophrenic muddle with good ideas struggling to punch through a generic and boring shell.

[rating=2]

Ben Browne

Genre:
Sc-fi, Adventure, Action,
Distributor:
eOne
Rating: 12
DVD/BD Release Date:
10th March 2014(uk)
Director:
Gavin Hood
Cast:
Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld , Ben Kingsley
Buy:Ender’s Game [DVD] / Ender’s Game [Blu-ray]