Ender’s Game the Movie — Review

Nooo…..

Quite a lot of years ago now I listened to this as an audiobook as I walked Piglet on the beach. I was immediately drawn in: what a fantastic book, I felt! Probably my favourite amongst hundreds of books that I’ve listened to on MP3, even though Science Fiction is not my usual thing.

When I heard that it was coming out as a film I was hugely excited, and I’ve been waiting for it for many months. Now that I’ve seen the adaptation, though, I’m hugely disappointed. The actors playing the children were all too old (defeating the object of the book (if you’ve read/listened to it, you’ll know what I mean)), and it seemed as though somebody had been through the book with a pencil ticking off things that they felt should be incorporated into the film and filming them as a matter of conscience.

There was no heart in it, though, and I actually gave up and went to bed half way through the film. I tried again with the rest of it the next morning, but it was all so dull and boring and lacking in spirit that I simply turned it off: I’ve no idea how the film ended, and I really don’t care.

What a shame! I know that it was never going to be easy to turn Ender’s Game into a wonderful film, but now I’m sorry that they even tried. Thank goodness that I still have the book itself to return to.

Sorry to say, but if you’ve not seen it yet, and you loved the book, then I’d suggest that you don’t bother 😦