Ender's Game

Ender's Game
Director: Gavin Hood
Writer: Gavin Hood, Orson Scott Card (based on his book)
Run Time: 114 mins
Release Date: 1 November 2013
Rating: 5/5
Synopsis: Young Ender Wiggin is recruited by the International Military to lead the fight against the Formics, a genocidal alien race which nearly annihilated the human race in a previous invasion.
Review: I may be a little late coming to the Ender's Game party but I just watched the film and I must say I was blown away.  I walked into this film with no prior knowledge other than I was fully aware it was an adaptation of a much loved novel.
Now I've seen some reviews of it and I have to say for the most part I disagree with the points which the negative reviews seemed to focus on. The film, for a two hour film felt well paced and there was no story line confusion along the way, everything had the amount of time it needed the really develop a character relationship and story development.
The movie was slow enough that you had enough time to immerse yourself into the world but quick paced enough that you never really got bored with what was going on. Though the idea of an army completely controlled and made up of children soldiers in space was not necessarily an idea we would be familiar with the film did touch base on topics that are timeless in any generation.  Bullying, family, expectations, war.
Asa Butterfield, known only to me form his few appearances on the BBC show Merlin, was fantastic. The raw emotions he tapped into, the anger, hurt, sadness was something I have not seen from a young actor in quite a while and I was overall impressed by his performance as Ender, he was Ender.
I felt that all of the roles in the film were very well acted especially by the younger actors, It was a consistent level I hadn't seen in a long time. Also, Harrison Fords cold hearted calculating leader was fantastic but a little bit frightening.
The end of the film had the stress level high and the ending, though it caught me by surprise was somewhat anticipated. The further into the battle scene It progressed the more I predicted the aftermath but it was still heartbreaking to watch and watch the reaction of Ender and His team.

Favorite Quotes:
" In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him."
"We won that's all that matters!" "No. The *way* we win matters!"
"There is no teacher but the enemy. Only he will tell you where you are weak, where he is strong."
Recommendation: Over all would I recommend this film? Yes! To everyone and anyone who would listen, it was fantastic There was nothing about this film as a viewer that I thought 'oh I wish they'd changed this' I loved it all and felt it was all necessary to properly tell the story.