I admit I am kind of happy to see the beginning of the film verbatim as it was in the book.

This film feels G-rated, unlike the intellectually sophisticated, elegant and violent story that it is based on.

Valentine Wiggin (Abigail Breslin) is frail and empty as a character. Ender (Asa Butterfield) is weak and flimsy. Not the brilliant tactician from the book, who grows up in Battle School, to form relationships – deep bonds with his classmates, some of whom were once enemies. This part of the movie moves so fast, there is no time to develop and ingest these emotions.

Ender is not his real name. It is the nickname given to him by his sister who couldn’t pronounce Andrew when they were kids. This among other things, is lost on the film.

Graff (Harrison Ford) is pathetic. He’s supposed to be a tough, callous, aggressive and powerful commander. He just looks tired. He’s meant to be the most intelligent adult in the school, the only one smart enough to know that none of them are half as smart as these kids.

Sir Ben Kingsley screws up Mazer Rackham’s character by playing it straight. Something as quirky as Sexy Beast could have worked.

Dialogue is taken as written from the book without context, presence of character or the psychology of a knowing delivery.

Battle School is where Ender escapes the sadistic and possibly psychotic Peter, who is supposed to be a monster, yet he appears in the film as merely an aggressive bully.

Battle School is where Bean escapes the murderous Achilles (who killed Po, the only person who had ever shown Bean kindness thus far.) It is also an escape from the poverty and starvation of life on the streets of Rotterdam for a skinny, tiny weak little brat, not worth a bean.

In the book, we see how Ender aggressively matures into a young man – a Captain, then a General; a ruthless killer, but a good man; a good soldier. His ascent through Battle School moves by so fast, that people are showing him respect when he didn’t have time to do anything to earn that respect.

Ender is a genius. All the kids in Battle School are geniuses. Ender and his friends are the best of the best, but we need to see this. In the film, Ender comes off as a whiny pussy.

Understanding the aliens is vital, but there is no time for this, there is barely enough time to communicate the relationships in Battle School and the emotional struggles of a few key characters, which fail.

The visual effects for the Giant’s Drink are decent.
Bonzo Madrid (Moises Arias) is a powerful little villain, love the nose. He seems wasted as a character, on a lack of well-prepared situations.

The naked shower fight is supposed to be fatal by design. With this fight resulting in an accident, Ender isn’t changed by the event in the same way. He is not a ruthless killer, surviving rather than submitting. He hasn’t grown up, in this moment.

Petra (Hailee Steinfeld) is a fun character but their friendship barely has time to form. There could have been room for this Battle School period, (which is a large part of the book; and quickly summarised in the movie – losing a lot of the effect,) to be stylised like the military complete with horrific undertones – humiliation, rape, torture, gangs, drugs, embarrassing diseases, maiming, black market, gambling, perversion.

Sticking it to Bonzo by being a better soldier in the Battle Room is satisfying, despite the mundane neons and predictable camera angles.

A Gavin Hood film is bound to look polished. I’m surprised the writing is so weak, adapting to writing for adaptation must be tough.

Unfortunately, he misses out on the opportunities to sell the story with style. Gavin’s transplant of exposition and dialogue from the book is just weak writing, rather than the expression of concepts and characters.

Gavin, perhaps, should have made more cuts, chosen the best concepts and story points and told the best story he could instead of trying to shove everything in.

The Giant’s Drink in the Adventure Game is the best source of drama in the movie. The battle with the aliens/Buggers/Formics, is a great climax, but it’s not the main point of the story. And the secret about the ‘training simulations’ is given away far too easily in the film, when it’s a really cool punchline for the characters in the book.

In the film, we don’t realise that it was Bean who chose the members of Dragon Army for Ender.

The Battle Room in the book, drives Ender and his men to exhaustion, he gives up. He’s had enough. He makes a suicidal effort to throw out all the rules, and miraculously takes the victory, with Bean by his side. ‘The enemy’s gate is down.’

This situation is repeated against the Formics, in an unbeatable situation, Ender and the men (and Petra) are exhausted, sleep-deprived, almost insane, Bean reminds Ender, ‘The enemy’s gate is down.’ It doesn’t mean anything, but it gives Ender the push he needs to throw it all out and launch a crazy attack.

In the movie, Ender and his men never look like they’ve even had a decent workout, let alone torture-level exhaustion, while being forced to beat impossible odds. And winning.

It would be nice if Ender was the ruthless tactician from the books, instead of this whining child. Ender from the books would kick his ass. He would never let himself cry, or be seen as vulnerable.

Now if Ender in the movie had really gone toe to toe with Graff and impressed our humble viewer, it may have been enough to carry the film. But this child has no idea how to stand up to Harrison Ford.

It could have been better, despite the story being ruined in its lazy adaptation, like a child’s translation of A Christmas Carol, for his inebriated Whanau (who refuse to stand up for the play.)

Overall, this movie is disappointing. The books are excellent, especially Speaker for the Dead, Ender’s Shadow, Children of the Mind, Xenocide and the first one of course. The movie is just not staunch and macabre like the book. And without that, the movie feels empty.

It fails in the way that Fellowship of the Ring succeeded. A movie with a sentimental young adventure where there’s no sex, drugs or rock and roll and you aim to make money at the cinema. For this reason some thought Fellowship would fail. But if you’re going to not deliver on some of the edgier aspects of the book you’ve got to fill the empty space with something, you can’t just expect average uncommitted acting to save the day. Especially when the film doesn’t involve any real drama – most of the book is about Ender’s growth as a soldier in battle school – his inner turmoil as he deals with having killed twice before and feels like he’s becoming his older brother who is a monster who tortures domestic animals.

And the younger sister is supposed to be an intellectual equal to Ender yet also an angel in his eyes. Seeing yourself as a killer and dealing with that murderer side of yourself at such a young age, is really just brushed over because the audience was expected to be children. Yet the book is all about how a child deals with adult soldier conflicts. This story is not for children, to think that it was, is Gavin’s most grand mistake.

1 star

I appreciate the exposition of the alien versus mecha theoretical construct, yet the audio feels like it’s been swiped directly from Alien. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam – Sons of Anarchy) as our narrator/hero, Raleigh Becket, is somewhat cool. Typecasting be damned, it’s nice to see a sauve gangster taking on aliens and trying to save the world, (against his better nature,) with militaristic means.

I can let settle the clichés of portals and ‘looking in the wrong place for alien life.’ However, too much explanatory narration can be a bore. The FX are pretty sweet – the bigger your screen, the better. The violence is exciting, but not ‘emotionally effective trauma.’ The scientific speculation of a two-pilot control system is well thought out.

The characters come off as slightly shallow. Raleigh, without Jackson Teller’s background, is a staunch badass with a cool accent, nothing deeper. Stringer Bell/Idris Elba, another gangster (The Wire) as Stacker Pentecost is a waste of what little effort he gives to his delivery, of a character that doesn’t make sense with him in the role. The character reads as an uptight control-freak, asshole superior with a heart, to Raleigh. But he doesn’t sell the asshole part. His beautiful patriot/brave new world speech feels stolen directly from ID4.

The visual effects of the neural handshake are boring, though the concept is appealing. (Minority Report and Man of Steel have better visual FX.) The creature designs are reasonably interesting – Aaron Beck-esque insect for the face, mixed with a mechanical Rhino or Hippo. With the occasional alligator tail. A conscious choice appears to have been made to go with influences from creatures that we know, rather than create something wholly original.

There are skipped over concepts of K-pop, J-pop, the media and US pop-culture/hero-worship that could have been more interestingly and deeply explored. Were skipped over, presumably in favour of a more battle-oriented story. However, it’s a story which feels ‘tried’, yet not much true. The fight sequences are impressive.

The competitive conflict between Raleigh and Herc Hansen’s son Chuck (Robert Kazinsky) is weak and ineffectual. Ops Tendo Choi (Clifton Collins Jr. – Capote) is a brilliant actor in a minor role and perhaps could have been a better casting choice for this role.
One of the few interesting characters is the girl, Mako (Rinko Kikuchi) cast as a love interest.

Raleigh respects the girl, even if the writer hasn’t respected her enough to give her a complete character. Her acting is fully committed; she is better than her role.

The clock of doom concept is cool.

The storyline which follows the engineer, Doctor Geiszler (Charlie Day) is actually interesting. Unfortunately it ends predictably. One of the scientists – Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) is a cartoon character, the other is a nerd.

Guillermo can take credit for the fierce battles and joyous visuals. Will he take the credit for the lame characters and bad casting decisions?

I know a lot of girls who would fall in love with a tattooed nerd like Dr. Geiszler, if he were a more recognised and deeply written character.

Dr Geiszler wants to drift (tap into the mind) with one of the aliens – nice idea.

The final conclusion to the film’s story, regrettably, is ridiculously optimistic.

2.5 stars

Feels like a National Lampoon’s comedy. Bartleby ‘B’ Gaines (Justin Long) keeps quiet about his feelings for Monica (Blake Lively,) due to a fear of being exposed, humiliated by rejection. Justin Long is lively, funny and committed to the role. Bartleby, as a character, is witty and more Ferris Bueller than Ferris Bueller.

Schrader (Jonah Hill) is wound way too tightly and is fixated on following his father’s path into Harmon College (and the fraternity.)

After a fake ID scam, ‘B’ is roped into mowing the lawn at Monica’s parents’ house, because she’s having a party, while they’re away. He agrees, because he’s in love with her. Monica is treating ‘B’ like a nerd, but we do not hate her, because she’s not a bitch. She is actually really sweet.

Hoyt Ambrose (Travis Van Winkle) on the other hand, is the anti-nerd, jock, ass-hole, boyfriend to Monica.

‘B’ writes an anti-conservative essay which gets him rejected from all of the colleges that he applied to. (Quick Question: Why not try a college overseas, “American education is in the shitter.”)

So he decides to create a fake college on paper and gets his friend Schrader to build the website, to fool his dad. Some of Bartleby’s friends didn’t get into college, either. So they join in. And the plan snowballs.

Every good comedy of this style needs an evil villain. Dean Van Horne (Anthony Heald) is excellently putrid. His polar opposite is Ben (Lewis Black.) He used to be a genius, so ‘B’ hires him to pretend to be the Dean of the fake college. Ben is psychotic in a funny way, and a great lecturer of cynical philosophy.

Conservative, sheltered parents put tremendous pressure on kids to over-achieve at all costs; to get good grades, to compete for a good college. Causing themselves stress to the boiling point, over things they don’t even care about. They stress themselves out over things that might not even matter. And they become zombies, slaves to conformity. They are forced to behave like prisoners, and the teachers are guards. In reality, though, education is a service industry. Those kids all paid for an experience. They paid as much as their parents did – paid in fear, blood, sweat and tears, while their parents paid in dollars, on their behalf.

A good college is not a machine. A good college cares for its students. It cares more about the health, well-being and performance of its students, than traditions and discipline. This is college; students should be treated as adults, with respect and compassion, not ruled by fear. Institutions as old as colleges need to stop emulating prisons.

‘B’ and his friends lease an old mental hospital and fix it up as the fake college campus, because his dad wants to drop him off at the college on the first day, when he meets the Dean.

The fun really starts when it turns out that the website for the fake college accepted the applications from hundreds of real students.

Acceptance is just one click away. “But you don’t make it clickable!”

This film makes you feel all sorts of emotions: It’s funny, sexy, tragic, exciting, cool, silly, inspiring, provocative, joyful, and anarchistic. A great soundtrack provides songs that accentuate the mood of every moment.

The story survives on the backs of some great characters. Alongside ‘B’ and Ben are Daryl ‘Hands’ Holloway (Columbus Short) the nice guy with an injured knee, and an interest in phallic wood-sculpting, Maurice (Joe Hursley) the rock star, Glen (Adam Herschman) the crazy fool, Rory (Maria Thayer) the feisty redhead and a few hot chicks.

It’s all about a college with a creative business model and a passionate young founder.

3.5 stars

Despite containing a mystery (which once you’ve seen the film, you know the secret,) Traitor is immensely re-watchable. This is a complex spy game. We know that someone is a traitor, but from whose perspective? Who is the traitor? And did he betray the cause, or his country?

Stuck in a Yemen prison, we are introduced to the Islamic faith and the nature of Samir (Don Cheadle) – the film’s protagonist (driving force.)

This is Don Cheadle at his best, he runs the gamut emotionally. Special Agent Clayton (Guy Pearce) is passionate and focused, smart and deductive. He’s a good guy. But what game is Samir playing? Which mask is his real face?

There is a substantial amount of time and attention paid to the FBI chase, which is important in a spy movie. The viewer needs to understand both sides of the hunt.

Switching back and forth between them and Samir’s troubles in prison, is interesting because the pace is just right. Not so fast that the viewer is disoriented, confused. Not so slow that the viewer feels patronised, or bored.

It is interesting how Samir sets himself up to be rescued by Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui – Three kings) – the person whom he needs to get close to, now he must earn his trust. An argument that sounds convincing to Samir, concludes with the line, “Once upon a time Americans were the terrorists to the British.”

As the story continues, snippets fall into place. Agent Carter (Jeff Daniels) is convincing. Samir is a man of faith. The FBI are playing a fascinating spy game, intricate and enticing. But they’re simply following Samir, he’s the star of this show.

The bomb-making is interesting to watch, fun to see the plan coming together. Then Samir disguises tragedy as triumph, when an attack on a diplomatic building leaves some innocent people dead. It is the British terrorist leader, Fareed (Alyy Khan) who Samir should not trust. This man has contacts watching the FBI. There are moles everywhere. And he does not seem to be a true believer.

The big mission is set and Samir is on the inside. It looks like Special Agent Clayton may be the hero of the story. From his perspective, the bombing proves Samir’s guilt. It seems that Samir is a terrorist, after all. This is what the film is about – where does Samir’s true allegiance lie? And soon the world will shudder.

The game is fun to watch, suspenseful and somewhat unpredictable, as the stakes are raised over, and over again.

Omar is an intriguing character. He’s a nice guy, but it’s not difficult for him to shoot a man dead, a man he doesn’t know (twice to make certain.) And when things get dicey, he tries to talk Fareed out of killing Samir. So we like him, but we also know that he is dangerous.

The ending is really well calculated, thrilling. It’s scary how nowhere is free from terror, how a terrorist cell could be operating anywhere. A person could as easily be a terrorist as a serial killer, right under your nose. The only escape from this feeling of fear, is that certain organisations, and some brave individuals working for them, are fighting this never-ending war to keep you safe.

3 stars

It’s a little unsettling to begin by watching a woman give birth. We all knew well in advance of this film’s release, that Russell Crowe was going to take up Marlon Brando’s role as Jor-El. Russell rocks the shiznit. However, as good a job as the makers did on this film, a lot of the story moments were similar enough to the original, to feel unnecessary.