Game over

Author Orson Scott Card appears to be some sort of pigheaded loser, as some of his recent publicized statements have indicated. That doesn’t keep his novel Ender’s Game and its sequels from being somewhat prophetic and intuitive when it comes to modern technology. It just makes him a big dick now. Hey Orson, go have an asshole tea party with Mel Gibson and Woody Allen.

OK, back to the film review. The story has a protagonist named Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a genius boy and master of futuristic videogames and strategies. He’s targeted by a military leader (crusty and craggy Harrison Ford) as the savior of the human race, somebody who can save Earth from a second attack by an alien insect species called the Formics.

Ender enters into a training program where he is fast tracked to the point of commanding his own ragtag group of teens, including True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld, through elaborate exercises. One involves a zero gravity room where they get to play laser tag with paralyzing rays, and the other being a large video game where they perform alien species annihilation scenarios.

The movie has some impressive special effects, and some great ideas at its core. What it doesn’t have is an engaging performance by its central actor. Butterfield just doesn’t cut it as Ender, opting for a mostly quiet intensity that results in boring stretches. Steinfeld acts circles around him, and he is clearly outmatched.

Also, something about this movie feels vastly abbreviated. I can’t help but think this franchise would’ve fared better as an HBO series, or some other network miniseries. The finale feels tacked on, super condensed and rushed. The character of Ender is required to switch emotional modes in a way that is too quick, and it feels false.

Card’s “One who can save us all!” premise, besides its biblical ramifications, also acted as a definitive prelude to such current phenomena as the Harry Potter series and The Matrix. The master gamer aspect of Ender was conceptualized when modern man was just saying goodbye to Colecovision and ushering in the age of Nintendo. The first Playstation was nearly a decade away.

So, I’m not denying that Ender’s Game was a masterfully intuitive notion as a novel. I’m just not impressed with the muddled effort director Gavin Hood hath wrought. The movie, although visually breathtaking at times, is a flat, joyless affair. I couldn’t help but think of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, another avenue for bug-like aliens attacking Earth, and how much fun that was. Ender’s Game has a lot of moping and routine teen angst in it.

Ford is actually my favorite thing in the movie. He manages to mix in an occasionally warm, even funny moment as the determined engineer of Ender’s fate. There’s plenty of that old, raspy Ford of his later career, but just a touch of Han Solo. Watching him in Ender’s, I found myself rooting for a deal with J.J. Abrams soon to have Ford reprise his Star Wars role. His work here would act as a nice bridge back to that franchise.

On the more confusing side, Viola Davis is on hand as Major Gwen Anderson, some sort of counselor/protector of Ender, constantly at Ford’s side and telling him his plan sucks. I got the feeling Hood and even Davis weren’t quite sure on the arc for this character, and she virtually disappears for long stretches of the film.

There’s some typical army barracks bullying involving a character named Bonzo (Moises Arias) that doesn’t feel fully realized. I got the impression that there should’ve been more to this character’s story, but given the feature-length running time, certain aspects of that story have been jettisoned.

Ender’s Game is not a bad movie. It has many respectable aspects, but it’s a movie marbled with dullness. It’s supposed to be the start of a franchise, but I have a sinking feeling the franchise ends here for now.