Ender's Game

Movie Title--  Ender's Game

Release Year--  2013

Running Time--  1 Hour and 54 Minutes

Director--  Gavin Hood

Cast--  Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Stunfield, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Aramis Kinght, Suraj Partha, Moises Arias, Khylin Rhambo, Jimmy Pinchak, Nonso Anozie, Conor Carroll

Ender Wiggins is enlisted by the International Fleet to help command a fight against an alien race known as Formics before they can come back to Earth and finish the job that they had started years before.

Fifty years after an attack by an alien race called the Formics, the International Fleet has been training gifted students to move on to become commanders of a counter attack fleet and preparing for an impending war.  Andrew Ender Wiggins (Asa Butterfield), has caught the attention of Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis), who are observing him to see if he is a candidate to move on to Battle School.  When he defeats an older student in a game of strategy, Graff decides to see how well Ender takes rejection.  Ender is called in and told that they are going to remove the monitor that has been placed on him and he knows that this means that he is no longer in the cadet program.  Ender is then cornered by the same cadet that he had beat previously at the strategy game and is beaten up but soon he gets the upper hand and severely injures the boy.

Ender goes home and expresses his feelings to his sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin), telling her that he thought this was what he was born for, since any family that wanted to have had to get permission and he failed.  While he is talking to Valentine, their brother Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) comes in and terrorizes Ender.  However, Graff arrives and tells Ender that the removal of his monitor was part of the test and he wants Ender to move on to Battle School.  Graff places Ender with cadets of his own age but makes sure he alienates him from the rest of the group.  Graff wants Ender to feel like he can't turn to anyone and needs him to feel as if he is an outcast in order to get the results from Ender that he wants.

The new cadets are shown the "Battle Room", a zero gravity battle arena where teams perform training games to try and best their opponents.  Ender, along with the other, students practice in the arenas and learn strategy during the day and one evening before lights out, he finds a mind game that Anderson has unlocked for him.  Graff will not allow her to observe him in person. so she places the game on his device so that she can have some kind of clue about his mindset.  When Ender makes a decision to overcome a problem in a way that no one else has yet, Graff decides to promote Ender to the Salamander Army.  

Once Ender arrives, he answers to the Commander Bonzo Madrid (Moises Arias), the leader of Salamander Army.  Bonzo resents having the new cadet, especially learning that he has no training and bans Ender from fighting and training with them in the Battle Room.  Petra Arkanian (Hailee Steinfeld), the only girl in the Salamander Army, feels poorly for Ender and takes him privately to the Battle Room to train.  When Bonzo finds out, he punishes Ender by forbidding him to come into the Battle Room during one of their games.  However when Petra is hit, Ender defies Bonzo and goes to check on her.  Together they devise a plan that helps their team win the battle game.  

Impressed with Ender's solution during the game, Graff promotes Ender to the leader of the Dragon Army, an army that had been inactive for years that Graff has decided to make active once more, then recruits him some students that look as promising as Ender is.  Bonzo, enraged by Ender, confronts him in bathroom.  Ender defends himself and in the process, motrally wounds Bonzo.  Distraught about this, Ender decides to quit Battle School but Valentine, at Graff's behest, she convinces Ender to continue on with his training.

Instead of taking Ender back to school, Graff takes Ender to a base that is close to the Forimic's home planet.  Ender learns that his team from battle school is on the base with him and together as a team, they run strategic simulations to prepare for an attack that has been predicted by the superiors.

I thought this film was excellent.  For me, it was one of the best science fiction films I have seen lately.  During Ender's isolation, the viewer can't help but feel for him and want to cheer for him.  Asa Butterfield did a great job portraying this boy that wants to prove himself while at the same time trying to keep his humanity during this cold and strenuous training regiment.  

I will say that I have seen that this film didn't get very high critic or viewer reviews, so it obviously isn't going to be a film for everyone.  I am not sure why exactly this film didn't get high scores, it did what some films can't and that is, hold the viewers attention the whole way through.  There wasn't a time during this film that I felt my mind wandering or I became uninterested.  It really was entertaining until the very end.

This film is probably alright for young adults to watch.  There was a little bit of violence but nothing too bad and since the main characters were mainly tweens, there wasn't too many adult situations in this film.  Invite the older young people in your family to watch this one with you during movie night and Don't Forget the Popcorn!