I read the novel many years ago, probably right after it came out, and I remember very little of it. I recall it was about an interstellar war where children were being trained as warriors against alien invaders of the insectoid variety. (The usual evil “hive” mentality, a la Starship Trooper, the typical Marxist metaphor used to justify Terran xenocide). You know how that goes, THEY march in jack-booted regimented lockstep, with no choice but to sacrifice themselves for their species. WE are freedom-loving individualistic patriots who voluntarily choose to do the same. THEY need to be exterminated. We must survive at all costs. QED. The plot cooperates by painting the bugs as unapologetic aggressors who attacked us first. Don’t they always? (although this time, we’re invading their planet). There must be a rational compromise between total militarism and helpless pacifism, but I guess in a fight for survival there is never time to think it over.

As prep for writing this review, I did a Zone search on “Ender’s Game” and stumbled onto a spirited political discussion held on this forum by O.S. Card’s supporters and critics. I didn’t participate in that kerfuffle because I had not seen the film at the time, and could barely remember the book, but I highly recommend you check it out. It goes a long way to explaining why this marriage is failing.

At any rate, this review is about the film, not the book. I remember very little about the latter, although I do recall I enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed its sequel, “Speaker for the Dead” even more, although I remember very little about it as well.

Basically, EG is a military melodrama, of the subspecies which focuses on the boot camp experience. It features every cliche about military training, but misses the whole point. I’ve been to boot camp, I know how it works, and why. There is nothing cute or noble about it, it is designed to turn selfish, spoiled kids into mindless automata who will take and follow orders by giving them a sense of helplessness and dependence which only mindless patriotism and slavish obedience to the chain of command can ameliorate. (IOW, the only way to fight jackbooted tyrants and their mindless slaves is to become just like them.) This is not a criticism, I can’t think of any other way to train an army. The Romans got it right thousands of years ago and I doubt it has changed much since. But we should be realistic about it. It may work for teenagers, but I was 20 when I was a boot, so I could see through their game. I was ready to fight for my country, but I had no intention of dying for it.

There is also a lot of pseudo-psychiatric bullshit in this movie as well, along with some questionable pacifist propaganda so obvious it will probably backfire and turn you into drooling warmonger. Ignore it, it distracts from some great action sequences.

The acting was rather wooden, just phoned in by a respectable but uninspired cast, with the exception of the young actor who played Ender Wiggin, Asa Butterfield. The kid is really good. The special effects were spectacular, but not particularly convincing. The film is worth watching, I give it B-, but it promises to be even more forgettable than the original novel.

There is one saving grace to this film, at the very end, Ender realizes the real reason the war was fought.
The bugs were a hive mentality, a distributed intelligence, to use computer jargon. The bugs simply did not recognize humans as being sentient beings (until it was too late) because they had never run into anything like us before. Without actually pounding it into our heads, the film communicates by implication that we made the exact same mistake.