A Thrilling "Ender's Game"

As one is looking through the mind of Ender Wiggin and sees the creature shriveled on the screen, one can only wonder how anyone could come up with this. With scenes like these, Gavin Hood, the director of the eagerly anticipated movie representation of the classic 1985 sci-fi novel by Orson Scott Card, "Ender's Game" lived up to the hype and delivered a pleasurable and memorable experience. The book, which landed Card both the Nebula and Hugo awards in 1986, is widely read and unlike other anticipated books, it has been read by many generations because of the date of its publication. Because of the difficulty of making a book into a movie, a lot of Ender Game's original developing plot line was cut.

One aspect that is so appealing about this movie is the fact that it is set apart from all other popular sci-fi blockbusters. In the movie there is almost no blood spills or visuals of dead people or things. In the film 15-year old Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), lives on a futuristic Earth, which is still in shock because of an attack 50 years prior by a species of aliens named Formics. Ender is a child who has been selected by the elite military force to train and possibly be the commander of the forces. Under the constant supervision of Col. Graff (Harrison Ford) Ender travels from Battle school, a center of learning where children learn about the tactics of war, to Command school. Along the way he meets some close friends in the form of Petra (Hailee Steinfield), Bean (Aramis Knight) and Alai (Suraj Partha) who all are around his age.

During his time at Battle school some of the major differences between the book and the movie are witnessed, not only are the characters Fly Mojo, Crazy Tom and Dink Meeker not mentioned in almost any depth, the Rat team is not even mentioned in the whole movie. Another substantial difference is in the movie Bean arrives at the Battle school on the same ship that Ender arrives in. An aspect that is totally ignored by the film is the importance of Ender's brother, Peter. He is mentioned a few times in the movie but is only seen twice and is more of a faraway negative figure in Ender's life than in the book.

The director of "Ender's Game," Hood ("X-Men Origins: Wolverine") does a good job condensing the story to fit the allotted time slot of 114 minutes. The plot is logical and although at times it is given in more quantity than other parts, overall it is easy and pleasurable to follow. It is also helped by the only comedic relief in the movie offered by Sergeant Dap (Nonso Anozie), who adds a little flavor to the movie, and takes a break from all the intense scenes. Hood also does a good job with displaying the grandness of the ships in space, the crazy battles and the environments of Battle school and Command school. This mastery is displayed when, as Ender is transported into a mind game, the graphics in these parts of the film give off that videogame-feel in the way that the people and environments are visualized. Some highlights of this movie were the pure awesome battle scenes in which the graphics were superb.The acting in the film is for the most part very good but in some parts Butterfield's representation of Ender is not completely convincing. However Ford, as always, gave an excellent performance, always seeming fierce and determined to achieve his goals.

Overall, "Ender's Game" is a film that demonstrates another side of the sci-fi spectra; it primarily focused on human relationships, emotions and thoughts, instead of violence and death. The film moves along at a brisk pace that makes the audience constantly think. Although there are a lot of excluded details, this film should be seen whether one has read the book or not.

4 stars. PG-13 Contains sci-fi violence and action 114 minutes. Now playing at are theaters. Released Nov. 1