Ender's Game 

As part of my birthday treat, I thought I would have a bit of sci-fi with the film Ender's Game. It was actually the third of three current films that I wanted to see - rarely am I so spoiled for choice! - so was it worth the effort?

I have a strange feeling of having been "soiled" after watching this film, there is something unpleasantly "unclean" about it. The basic premise is that many years in the future, the earth is under attack from a merciless race of insect like aliens, with whom it is impossible to communicate. The only hope for the human race is to find and train a child who is capable of learning to be a commander against them. That child is Ender, and yes, he does successfully end up leading the earth against them.

The problem for me is the moral premise of the film. He is leading his army in a final computer simulation against the enemy and succeeds in destroying their home planet. Success, you might think - the general then informs him that it was actually the "real thing" and he had wiped out an entire species in the process - committed genocide, to be accurate. Of course he is devastated, but he finds a surviving alien egg and goes off to rear it. We don't know the result of that - I presume they have "Ender's Game 2" in mind - but I won't be bothering.

It's all good, flashy sci-fi, brilliantly filmed, great special effects and a bit of a thought provoking story - so what's wrong with it? Firstly - it's all too "American", looking and sounding like "High School Musical" or any other modern Disney pap, without the music, but with genocide thrown in as a bonus storyline. The mixture was incongruous and left me feeling somewhat disorientated. Secondly, being an avid sci-fi fan, I can say with confidence that the theme of the film - the ease with which the human race can easily contemplate committing genocide and laugh it off - is something that has been done a number of times before in the various Star Trek incarnations - and done with a great deal more sensitivity and skill, with much more attention to the fine points of the shocking nature of the subject matter.

In conclusion I would say that this film is rather akin to a dumbed down, slap dash, poorly directed, extended episode of "Star Trek Voyager", albeit one with a mega special effects budget. I really wouldn't bother with this one.

09/11/13