"All right team, which way is the enemy's gate?"
"THE ENEMY'S GATE IS DOWN!!!!"
Yea, the enemy's gate is down and Ender's Game is a bit down, as in a bit of a downer. I liked it, but I didn't love it, as it felt like it was missing things. Like an actor that can emote better.
First off, I'd have to say I'm impressed on how close it stuck to the novel as much as it did. I was expecting them to go more off on a limb. Yea, there were changes, like the Bugger's first attack being on Earth, which was probably to add to the tension, or the fact that the Command school was on a Bugger planet (yea, I know they're called Formics but the book used the slang Bugger most of the time and I'm used to it).
My biggest issue was length, not that it was too long, but too short at less than 2 hours not counting credits and stuff. This movie needed to be at least 2.5 hours. And this is because of all the things they had to cut from the book.
I understand that the movie had to be cut down as not to bore your typical stupid audience member, and had to be dumbed down for them as well. The studios are making the movie for everyone, not for the hardcore fan.
However, the movie felt rushed, like too much was packed in. Ender was just 10 minutes on the station and he was already in Salamander Army, and then 10 minutes later he was in Dragon Army, with no time for character development. One of the things that made the book was the Battle Room and all the battles that Ender participated in. This is where Ender's genius really shined through. The teachers would throw all sorts of obstacles at Ender in the Battles to make him lose and he would outsmart them every time. But in the movie there's only two Battle scenes, one with Salamander and one with Dragon. There's no chance to see Ender really using his genius. They really needed to add another half hour of battle room scenes at least.
The other problem had to do with the choice to put the command school in another planetary system rather than the asteroid belt like it was in the book. The Ender Game universe is hard-scifi, and the ships don't travel faster than light. So it takes years, centuries to travel from system to system. In the movie you see a shot of Graft's office and it says the fleet would arrive at the Bugger's homeworld in 30 days. And yet, when Ender goes to command school he travels to a different system. That system would have to be at least 4-5 light years away, if not MORE, which means it would take Ender's ship at least that many years to get there. So, am I to assume that the ships at the Formic planet just sat there for 5+ years to wait for Ender to get to the command center? Or did a Hollywood movie yet again ignore relativistic travel?
Final score 7/10, and only because I'm being generous as it was a decently entertaining movie and they followed the book okay, if not perfectly.