Ender's Game - 2013

Let us take a great leap forward into the present day of film-making, and the bleak future of science fiction.

Sorry, what was that? Did I say bleak? Are ALL the movies I'm going to watch from now on going to be bleak ones?

Huh. Well, maybe so.

Ender's Game is so new we went to see it at the movies. So if you haven't seen it - CAUTION, SPOILERS!

The movies = a big long taxi drive all the way out to the mall in District 7, where on Saturday night they had Entertainments in the form of a PA system turned all the way up to 11 and plugged into a local singer. She was on the ground floor, and the not-so-dulcet tones were still bouncing strongly off all surfaces even inside the pizza hut on level 5. DATE NIGHT!!!

Lo, and I ordered unto myself a very small pizza in order to reserve room for sugar popcorn.

We chose Ender's Game because we had watched the trailer and it had Han Solo Indiana Jones Harrison Ford in it:

 

Poor Harrison. He got bit by the same dog as Gordon Ramsay:

Gordo

Han

So about the movie: we didn't realise it was actually a kid's movie until we were in it. But, in the league of movies for kids about kids with power, this one is really just coasting on the slipstream of the Hunger Games. Although it's better than those ones about vampires.

The good:

• Space! I do like a bit of zero-gravity. What fun. There was no explanation as to how the big spaceships simulate gravity - which was probably for the best.
• Aliens! Though there wasn't all that much good alien stuff, mostly just animations of space ships - there was a bit of aliening at the end.
• Telepathy! One of my favourite tropes. Again - not all that much of it, but a bit, towards the end.
• Game theory! OK, a lot of the supposedly amazing strategies presented in the film were actually not all that amazing or complex. But still! How philosophical!
• The Maori! Ben Kingsley has a role as a Maori. He has a quite good moko, and a really weird accent. To me, it didn't sound like a kiwi accent all that much, but it gave me great insight into what the rest of the world probably hears when they hear us talking. Weird!

 

The bad:

• Army brats! The justifications presented for children being the main military personnel in the film are this: children are faster than adults and make better decisions under pressure. Everybody with a teenager in your household - does this ring true to you?
• Children are morally pure! Ender's sister Valentine is the moral compass for this film - she has an innate sense of right. Ender himself, when compelled unwittingly to a morally compromising decision is angry, resentful and determined to make right. The Khmer Rouge could have written this.
• Girls are weak! Having one strong female character doesn't make good on all the other gender stereotyping.

I think that if I was a young boy I would seriously think this movie was cool. Maybe even philosophically deep. Maybe a little aspirational. And, it has absolutely no sex, which is appealing to the under 14 year old male psyche.

But I'm not.

In summary:

Bechdel test: There are two or more women in this movie, but they don't talk to each other.

Repeat line: I can't remember! So if it was used, not memorably so.

Believable characters: The aliens?

Music: Scored.

Tears: No.

Plot: Predictable.

Star rating: 6/10

 

Posted with Blogsy