Sci-fi novel comes to life

What does it take to win?  That is a question the science fiction movie “Ender’s Game” innovatively answers.

The main star of the film is one of England’s rising stars, Asa Butterfield. He is no longer the child from “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” or BBC’s “Merlin.” He has now become a teenager gifted with innovative gaming strategies to help save mankind.  And it is this genius that made him the underdog from the start, a believable and realistic move. With strong and believable acting, he is the film’s greatest highlight.

But I must say I am disappointed in what I found with the character played by Harrison Ford. I was expecting him to be Butterfield’s wise mentor, but what I got instead was a drill sergeant with only four words to describe him: ambitious, stubborn, dictatorial and obsessive. Alongside him was a smaller role by Sir Ben Kingsley, who is not worth mentioning more than once.

In the film, both the story and the animation are solidly spectacular. It focuses greatly on the mindset of this brilliant young prodigy, as emphasized by the all-CG sequence of a “mind game,” where characters and settings inside an Xbox universe reflect the player’s psyche. My only question with the animation is why are we portraying the aliens as being a hierarchy run solely by a queen? We have seen that sort of portrayal before with the xenomorphs in the alien franchise, with the borg in “Star Trek” and most recently, with Loki’s army in “The Avengers.” The one thing about the aliens that is not so cliche is we look at their methods both ways, whether it be an invasion or a means of defense.

All in all, “Ender’s Game” is a thrill to behold with a firm combination of breathtaking animation and a very deep story. Butterfield seems to have true potential here.