Ender's Game

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, & Ben Kingsley

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Ender franchise has turned into such a global phenomena that now, most kids are required to read it in High School. I was one of those kids and I absolutely loved the story. In fact I continued on with the books and they became unbearably strange. How they got almost 20 novels out of it is beyond me. While I was really excited to finally see Ender's Game on the big screen, I knew the chances of it continuing past one film would be slim at best. It all has to do with the ending, which is bizarre and really shouldn't have been continued. For those who don't know the story, in the future, Earth is at war with an alien species known as the Formics. The Humans have taken heavy losses and in desperation have started a recruitment program, that focuses on children. Knowing that kids think in a different way than adults do, they are hoping to find that one genius who has the key to defeating the Formics. That child turns out to be Ender Wiggin, a child who under Earth's new Government, shouldn't have even been born. Seeing the story I read so many years ago, come to life on the big screen, was magical for me. Finally I was able to understand the parts that were just too confusing to see in my head and get the complete picture. Ender is played by Asa Butterfield, who somewhat miraculously, at the age of 15, has had the starring role in every film he's been in. After watching Ender's game it's not hard to see why, he was to this film, what Ender was to the Human's in the story. The producers surrounded him and his young crew with a cast of Academy Award winners including Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, and Viola Davis, which ultimately strengthen the movie and must of really inspired this kid to give the performance he gave. While the film simply broken even at the box office, (killing any chance of a franchise developing out of it) it was very well done and closely mirrored the book. They did a near perfect job of deciding what parts should stay and what should be eliminated, giving us a film that was just as good as the book, if not better.