Moroni's Review of "Ender's Game"

Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford in "Ender's Game"

 "Ender's Game" was a movie I was looking forward to, because I had read the novel the film is based on nineteen years ago.  Granted, I am not a huge fan of Orson Scott Card, the author of the novel.  He is a Mormon, like me.  But over the years, I have disliked some of his political views - and he has expressed quite a few.  In addition to that, I find his writing bloated and pretentious.  (He plagiarized the Book of Mormon in one of his series.)  And yet I liked "Ender's Game" quite a bit.  Not enough to read the other books in the series.  But it is a good book.  I was pleased to see that a film version was coming out.

Then the controversy started.  Certain LGBT groups were calling for boycotts of this movie because of some of Orson Scott Card's statements previously against gay marriage.  At first this annoyed me,  I have always made it known that I am decidedly pro-gay marriage.  But I always hate it when people try to mix politics with art.  Especially when it is turned into propaganda.  But then I remembered that I do the same thing.  I boycott organizations and groups that are anti-polygamy; for instance, my boycott of Ben & Jerry's for their contribution to Tapestry Against Polygamy around eight years ago.  Sure, it was a long time ago, and Tapestry Against Polygamy has luckily gone the way of the dodo.  But I still don't eat Ben & Jerry's.  Any group that would support hate does not get my support.

Suddenly, I realized that I was being a hypocrite.  I felt the same way about my cause that the LGBT community feels about theirs.  I think the source of my conflict was that I really liked the story.  Eventually, I realized that I was going to go see this movie, in spite of my feelings.  To rationalize this, I had to divorce Orson Scott Card from his story.  It was the story I liked, not the author.  Plus, the studio announced that people could see this movie guilt free, because Card had no involvement with the film and was receiving no monetary compensation for it.

And really, the story is relevant in our day and age in its depiction of our society, the " good guys", justifying and lying to people about a war that, when you boil it down, doesn't need to happen.

It may have been nineteen years since I read the novel, but, from what I remember, the film sticks pretty close to the book.  It tells the story of a boy genius, Ender Wiggins, who is selected by the government to take part in a secret project to train kids to think outside of the box, as it were, as a means of fighting an alien force called the Formic that invaded Earth in the past.  The training pits his wits against his fellow students in some complex war games in a zero g environment.  Asa Butterfield does a great job playing the solemn, intense Ender opposite Harrison Ford who plays the gruff Colonel Graff.  Ben Kingsley plays Mazer Racham, a Maori soldier of legendary proportions.  His portrayal was kind of sketchy, and I feel like the director (Gavid Hood) did not use Kingsley's talents to their full potential.  The same goes for Abigail Breslin's performance as Ender's sister, Valentine.  She was not given a chance for a full performance.

The strength of the performances give zest to the visual aspect of this film, which is sweeping.  The exercises in the Battle Room are epic, and the physics in zero g are flawless.  In these scenes, Ender gets to show his ability at strategy.  The best parts of this movie take place while Ender is training.  But the visual effects kind of detract from the space battles against the alien Formic.  There is way too much going on the screen, and it is vaguely video game-ish, like I am watching "The Last Starfighter" all over again.  But perhaps that is relevant to the plot twist, which I will not reveal here.

All in all, it is a good movie, my apologies to the LGBT community.  But for what it's worth, I didn't pay a cent.  I had free movie passes...