While the picture loses some plot tension by assuring the viewer that Ender is basically an okay kid, it gains by showing the growth of the boy into his destiny as "the One."
Based on a hit novel by Orson Scott Card, this futurist sci-fi film trudges along in perpetual low gear, its efforts at times laboured, despite a no-nonsense turn by Asa Butterfield as the game-theorist boy of the title.
It takes itself a bit too seriously and would have benefited from twisting the entertainment dial a little higher, but it's refreshing to see a film filled with teens that's intelligent and reflective.
There are times when a certain grimness weighs on the movie that you wish for more humor. But overall it's an absorbing and thought-provoking spectacle.
It is its book, put on the screen without any new thought whatsoever. A seventh grader could watch it and write a passable essay about it. I doubt they'd have much fun with it, though.
Far too benign and, in this blockbuster season, far too tired to leave any bad taste in the mouth, Ender's Game is better the less one thinks about it.
Enough people attended Ender's Game last weekend to place it at the top of the box office. But could any of them have known how profoundly unspectacular an experience they were in for?
