The first 40 minutes of Ender’s Game are like watching an Ender’s Game wiki. Even a decade removed from my second reading of Orscon Scott-Card’s fabled sci-fi story of a young general’s rise, I was bored by a clipped script, stunted plot, and limited acting. In the slew of movies based on young adult thrillers, Ender’s Game falls short because it holds our hand and takes no risks.
Condensing a book into a movie requires making sacrifices and balancing the uninformed audience with the readers. Ender’s Game sacrifices too much, however. A plot element that raises the book from good to great is the the subplot involving Ender’s two brilliant siblings, Valentine and Peter. In the book, while Ender leaves for training to fight the Formic alien race, his siblings remain on Earth and engage in a verbal power struggle for Earth. The battle with the Formics – the focus of the movie – is in part a distraction in the book while the real battle on Earth wages on. The removal of this dual plot means the success of the movie rests more on how well director Gavin Hood develops Ender and utilizes the acting skills of Harrison Ford, who plays Colonel Graff, and Ben Kingsley, who plays famed general Mazer Rackham.
Unfortunately, Hood fails in this department as well. The highlight of Ender’s Game is Ender’s development as a leader through Battle School. We are drawn to Ender as he converts his schoolmates, awing them with his acumen for innovative formations in the arena and discipline as a leader. The movie feels so fast-forwarded; the audience never fully appreciates Ender’s skill.
The audience never properly appreciates the emotional burden Ender carries either. The fault lies with Asa Butterfield (and to some degree the filmmakers for the script). Several high-grossing releases, namely the The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, which prominently feature young leads, have made audiences familiar with emotional teens, and ready for something new. Ender, whose destiny is to lead the Earth fleet in an attack against the dreaded Formics, a bug-like alien species, certainly packs on the emotion.
The problem is that Ender’s problems just don’t feel new. The poor acting doesn’t differentiate Ender’s sorrows in an interesting way from those of say, Katniss. The audience is rushed through Ender’s relegation as a Third (birth control limits mean that each family should only have at most two children) and is more distracted by the awkward sexual tension between Ender and fellow schoolmate Petra (played by Hailey Steinfeld). Butterfield fails to live up to our imagined Ender. He is awkward and lanky. When he yells, you feel unintimidated; when he expresses sorrow, he’s robotic. Maybe casting strong, young male leads is just difficult. Radcliffe and Butterfield both have had their issues. It’s a shame Jennifer Lawrence can’t play every role.
Image credit: Hollywood Reporter