Setting aside for a moment the quease-making notion that I just put good money into the hands of that miserable homophobe Orson Scott Card, I need to tell you about Ender’s Game. What I mostly need to tell you is that you should avoid it.
Ender’s Game is a boring, messy, unengaging and emotionally unconvincing melodrama about an unlikely teen who’s mercilessly groomed as chief alien killer by Harrison Ford and Viola Davis. (I never for one single second got what they saw in Ender Wiggin to make such leaps of faith in his warrior abilities.) There’s just nothing less satisfying than watching someone else on Playstation, and this feels like two looooong hours of it. Twists? There are a couple to up the ante from time to time. But they feel mechanical and ultimately manipulative. And they just can’t save the film from the bone-aching, fun-sucking, soul-destroying dullness. Incidentally, Duffey Lake in BC is the gorgeous backdrop to Ender’s Earthen home.
