ENDER’S GAME

In 1985, most of the games people were playing still involved a board and dice. To communicate with one-another, we relied on landline telephones and written letters. In Europe, The Iron Curtain kept countries like Poland, Germany, and The Czech Republic under communist control…and those last two countries were called something else at the time.

What I’m saying is that a lot has changed in almost thirty years. We have all evolved and grown…in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse. Is it possible that a story written in the heart of The Me Decade could still have something to say to this new generation?

Unfortunately, the answer is “no”.

ENDER’S GAME begins by telling us that Earth was once attacked by an alien army – and that those same aliens are gathering again to launch another attack.

As a counter-measure, Earth has begun to look for soldiers in a way they never thought of before: the recruit them as children. The notion is that children think and act more instinctually – and therefore less predictably – which will give the enemy all sorts of confusion in trying to plot countermeasures. Leading the recruits is Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) who judges the skills and tactical work of the potential soldiers. Alongside Graff is Major Anderson (Viola Davis) who is in charge of evaluating their psyche.

One promising candidate is Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield). Ender is the third child in his family, and the third to go through the training process. His older brother was deemed too violent, his older sister too compassionate. When Graff and Anderson look at Ender, they see him as the right mix of those qualities. Ender is plucked from the multitudes of candidates and sent to Battle School to be groomed as a combatant in the approaching war.

Once there, he and his fellow cadets are challenged to play games. Some physical – like the zero-gravity version of Capture The Flag that serves as the school’s best yardstick for its cadets problem-solving ability. Others are mental – such as the video game scenarios the children are given that have them acting as drone commanders in an intergalactic battle.

Through it all, Ender continues to impress, making Graff believe that he might actually be Earth;s greatest hope.

ENDER’S GAME is based on the first book in a tremendously popular series of science fiction novels by author Orson Scott Card. When it was first published in 1985, there was a lot of interest from Hollywood. At the time, Card was reluctant to give up the material, considering how dissatisfied he was at the way books were adapted into screenplays at the time. Eventually, Card came around, and as long ago as 1998, work began on adapting the book into a script. Through the years, at least a dozen different adaptations have been passed around Hollywood before the one at the source of this film was ultimately green lit.

I would give my right arm to see any of those prior adaptations…because there is no way they could possibly be worse than this turkey.

In truth, it’s not fair to point solely at the script, because a film that turns out this poorly isn’t just a script problem. ENDER’S GAME suffers from casting problems, acting problems, directing problems, and design problems on top of its glaring script problems. There are lines spoken in this film in full earnestness that are so laughably bad, one wonders if even Laurence Olivier or Orson Welles would be able to speak them with conviction. There are performances that seem to defy themselves – namely Moises Arias as Bonzo. Somehow, we are supposed to watch a squadron badass character strut around and make life miserable for Ender. It might be possible to believe that Bonzo is a ball-buster if her weren’t at least one head shorter than everybody else around him – including Hailee Steinfeld!

The world of this film never feels all that fleshed-out. At the core of the story is a war between intergalactic species. We know about earth and the humans that inhabit it, obviously, but we never learn anything about the foreign planet that did invade/will invade again inhabited by the Formics. Why did they attack Earth? What did they want? Why are they poised to do it again? In a way, this lack of motivation plays into the theme of “the game” – after all, we only know that other players in a game are plying, we don’t care what they’re playing for. However, considering the grandiose terms being thrown about by every grown-up – and the jaw-dropping play Ender eventually makes to “end the game”, we need more.

That, in a nutshell is the film’s problem – it’s toothless. Few of the lines spoken come with the gravity they deserve, and none of the choices being made come with any sort of consequence. Even Ender’s greatest moment of self-doubt feels mailed in.After he causes an accident paralyzing a fellow cadet, he is neither shocked, nor saddened, nor distraught. The script tells us that he’s taking it hard, but Butterfield isn’t given the tools to sell it.

Perhaps the film’s greatest failing comes with its end, which I will not spoil. What I will say is that it feels unearned, completely tacked-on, and seems to be casting an eye towards a sequel that may never come. How any of these problems survived the lengthy production process this project had to endure is a wonder. One would think with all of the effort that was put into getting the film made, that the people overseeing it would make sure that it was handled with kit gloves. Instead, the homework has been handed in dog-eared, coffee-stained, disorganized and incomplete.

It’s possible that time just passed ENDER by. In a way, many of its most poignant moments feel like they were built in 1985…when the world’s two biggest superpowers were still rattling sabres at one another, and allegorical films like WAR GAMES were in fashion. While the need for communication and peaceful resolution will always be pressing concerns, it feels like the greatest dangers of the world have moved beyond the mass annihilation that this film has as its great fear.

Matineescore: ★ out of ★ ★ ★ ★

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