The book remains essential and the film merely illustration, but as that it is satisfying.
Terrific way to summarize. I was fairly convinced that this was going to be
awful, and I'm happy to report I was wrong. Neither is it a great movie (certainly not a standalone one), but it gets a lot more right (or is doing its best to) than I expected.
The biggest problem is the classic adaptation characteristic of feeling both overstuffed and as if they're skimming the surface of far too many things. I'm okay with adaptations changing plot to make it translate better into the new medium, and they did a decently clever job streamlining certain things, but even still there is just no time to breathe or reach for depth because they always have to be onto the next thing. Worse yet, the voice-over exposition crutch robs even the transitional moments of any respite.
As a fan of the book it's easy for me to fill in all of the missing pieces and I already have an emotional connection to the characters to work off of, but I was still aware that a lot of the moments just rang false because they were not given the time or context to feel organic or earned. Short of a 4 hour movie (or a miniseries treatment) that's a hard problem to solve, but it's a pretty big problem to leave unsolved.
Beyond the bigger problems I could nitpick it to
death, and some problems bother me more than others, while there's a thousand other issues that would start with "In the book...", but for the most part I understand why those decisions were made. But rather than itemize those issues (well, I might do that too.
), let's talk about some of the good things.
I really liked the cast a lot more than I expected. Ford and Davis really made those characters work, and the kids all filled their roles pretty well. The age issue didn't bother me too much, and Asa Butterfield made a pretty great Ender. A lot of moments were heavy handed (again, likely due to lack of time), but they knew what moments were important to hit and that frequently gave way to the best scenes. And while subtlety is not the first word that comes to mind because of the structural problems, within individual moments they actually managed some nuanced details that I greatly appreciated.
The emotional complexity of the story suffered for the previously mentioned reasons, but it still exists in this version, and at times quite effectively. Similarly, they also didn't completely neglect the fun sense-of-discovery and friendship building elements that makes it such a bittersweet story. These are definitely areas where prior-knowledge is helpful, but from that perspective it facilitated an experience where I got to revisit one of my favorite stories and really enjoy it, rather than just being frustrated at how much they dropped the ball.