Yeah, I rent these movies instead of watching them at the theaters. I spend $5 for a week's rental compared to $15 for 2 hours. So sue me. On to the movie. Also, I have been a big fan of the books for a long time, so there will be many comparisons.
Okay, so we start out with Ender in school and getting his monitor taken out. Pretty close to what happened in the book, except in the book Ender is about 6 years old. The movie, he looks around 12-14. Anyways, after getting his monitor raken out, the local bully comes to beat him up. Instead, the bully is rather brutally beaten by Ender.
Okay, other than the age thing, that's about right.
Next we cut to Ender at home, and we see for one of the few times, his siblings Valentine (the compassionate one) and Peter (the sociopath). It kind of gives the view that Valentine is closer to Ender than Peter (who ends up choking Ender near the end of the "game"), but really doesn't delve into, or even really mention Peter much after this. In the book, Valentine and Peter take on a much bigger role, practically half the book is about their exploits. To the film's credit, they at least heavily imply that Ender cares very much about his sister (one of the few people to show genuine care for him for quite awhile), and misses her.
After a little bit of banter in the Wiggen household were Ender is told he is going to battle school, he gets on the ship that is going to the school in space. Here he meets Bean and the others that will play semi-background roles through the rest of the film. The problem with this scene? Bean is a few years younger and doesn't come into Battle School until well after Ender had been there for awhile. Bean also plays some important roles in the book (even get's his own series later on, the first one is called "Ender's Shadow". Check it out sometime if you haven't yet), yet in the movie is only portrayed as slightly more important than one of the various background characters.
After getting into Battle School (for what seems a couple of days), Ender gets put into Salamander Army (one of several groups that play in a Zero-Gravity version of laser tag) which is commanded by the highly authoratative and rather short (seriously?) Bonzso Madrid. Bonszo (pronounced Bone-so, not Bohn-zo like the clown, courtesy of the book, something which the movie kept messing up) immediatly hates Ender because he thinks Ender will ruin his perfect record. Bonzo, after being "humiliated" because Ender helped his team win by disobeying Bonzo's foolish orders, decides to take vengeance on Ender in the showers. This scene was done fairly well, other than what happened (Ender headbutted Bonzo so hard in the nose, it broke the skull rather than Bonzo being pushed down and hitting his head on the cement), and the fact that Bonzo, who is supposed to be several years older than Ender, is about a foot shorter. Yeah.
Next, after Ender's army beats Bonzo's army and another (and seemingly only being in charge of his army for the one battle, as it never hints at others, despite having to face a ton) and after the confrontation in the bathroom, Ender is shaken up by what he did to Bonzo and "quits" and goes back to Earth for a time. His sister Valentine (last time we see her) comes to talk to him and gets him to become happier and more confident. After this, Ender heads back up to space, but instead goes to Command School, where he begins his "training" to eventually lead the human forces to defeat the Formics. He reunites with his Jeesh (officers from his army at Battle School) along with Petra (only real friend that he knew for 5 minutes in Bonzo's army) and begins the battle simulations.
These battle simulations show Ender and friends commanding fleets of ships against fleets of Formic ship in various scenarios and battles (these scenes, although a bit quicker then what they should have been, are paced better than most of the movie up to this point). Finally, Ender and company come to the last battle, after many other battles that have mentally and physically exhausted them, this is the final one...
I'll stop there so as to not ruin the WHOLE movie, but on with the review.
Ender's Game the movie had potential to be at least a pretty good movie. Yeah, you have to edit some stuff down, and some out completely, but some very important things are either glossed over (Ender's time at Battle School and those battles of laser tag), pushed aside without much mentioning (his siblings, which actually have major roles in the book), left out entirely (the numerous battles with his army, the numerous times Ender is isolated from others for one reason or another, the stress of the numerous simulations, etc), or completely changed form the original source (Bean being the same age, the ending, etc).
While some parts were decent and had my attention, the pacing of the film, along with rushing through some very important scenes really took away from it. Other than Bonzo (way too short and small) and Bean (too old and tall), no real problems with the characters other than the ages (I can see why they had to change the ages though), but this movie was just not good. Being genrous, I'd give it a 5 out of 10. If you're a fan of the book, you'll see a lot missing or skimmed over, and if you haven't read the book, you'll be wondering what the hell is happening?
Ender's Game should have been at least 2 movies. This way, they could focus on many aspects that were skimmed over or out right ignored, and they could have slowed down the pace so it doesn't feel like what's supposed to take place over years (about 6 years in the book), or at least months, doesn't feel like it was all done in a week's time.
