Ender’s Game Movie Review

In the award-wining book Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, Ender is a boy who has been watched through a monitor his whole childhood by a group of people called the International Fleet, A.K.A. “The Fleet”. They see and evaluate every move he makes to judge whether he is the one to command their fleet against the buggers. Buggers are aliens who attacked earth and were responsible for thousands of deaths and almost the entire earth. Now the American government has been preparing for their return ever since. Ender was believed to be the one because of his superior knowledge and tactics. He has two older siblings Valentine and Peter. They were both part of the program but didn’t make the cut. Since Valentine and Peter were such outstanding participates in the program, they allowed Ender’s mother and father to have him… a third, which was his nickname through out his school. He doesn’t enjoy being called a third because he feels like his life wasn’t supposed to be made, and he was a mistake. His brother Peter is jealous of him because his monitor was on longer. While at school, Ender gets called to get his monitor removed from him. He assumes he is being removed from the program but is actually a final exam that he passed. So now he begins his journey into battle school to accomplish and achieve many things.
In the movie Ender’s Game, I noticed multiple parts in the movie that weren’t true to the book. In the beginning of the movie, the ages of the students fighting with ender were about 14-15 years old, but in the book the author describes them as young children. I believe they made this change because it would be too difficult to find some toddlers who are able to reenact a scene of a brutal fight. If they were to find children who could act out the scene I think it would make it more true to the book. Another thing that I noticed that I thought was really important that they missed was the part Peter apologized to Ender for being cruel and harsh to him. In the movie I believe they made Peter look like a total jerk who had no heart at all. If they were to add that into the movie, I think that people who didn’t read the book would see Peter as a different person. Also, in the movie they showed that Ender had lost a battle during the battle simulation. In the book Ender had never lost a battle and won everything that it gave him. I believe they did this so that the person watching the movie would second-guess ender of being the one to command the fleet. I think this actually made the movie better because it makes the audience wonder if Ender is the one to command the fleet that makes them want to watch even more.
In my eyes, some of the characters selected for the movie were not how I pictured them. I didn’t visualize Ender to be so tall and sticklike. I also thought that he didn’t play his personality right. I visualized Ender a little more distinct and aggressive with the other “launchies”. Another character that I thought was a little off was Bonzo. I definitely thought that the movie threw a wild curve ball by picking Moises Arias as Bonzo. I pictured Bonzo as a taller and bigger person, although his character’s personality was definitely spot on. He displayed an aggressive competitive leader that wouldn?t take anything from anybody. Although Moises Arias didn’t match my ideal physical features of Bonzo I give him props for his spontaneous acting.

Over all, I thought the movie could use a few touches here and there, but it at least met my expectations. I can understand why they can’t stay true to some parts of the book, although I could see some parts that they could’ve added into the movie. If I were to rate this movie on a scale of 1-10, I’d rate it a 6.5. What definitely would’ve made this movie better is if they didn’t try to rush the movie and cram everything into a two-hour movie. I would’ve made this a long movie like Avatar to try and fit as much details into the movie as possible.