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Freak Show (2017)

19 Monday Feb 2018

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D: Trudie Styler / 91m

Cast: Alex Lawther, Abigail Breslin, AnnaSophia Robb, Ian Nelson, Larry Pine, Bette Midler, Celia Weston, Willa Fitzgerald, Charlotte Ubben, Laverne Cox, Christopher Dylan White, Michael Park, Mickey Sumner, John McEnroe, Eddie Schweighardt

What if you didn’t fit in anywhere, and most days went out of your way not to fit in? And what if you were bullied by your fellow high schoolers, ignored by your father, missed your absentee mother terribly, and expressed your inner feelings by dressing up in outrageous yet clearly female outfits… and the source of all this was because you’re a boy? How would all that make you feel? And what would you do to combat the unwanted attention you’re getting from the other students? Well, in the feature debut of director Trudie Styler, the answer new kid Billy Bloom (Lawther) opts for is to be bolder and more outrageous, and to treat the majority of the other kids with disdain. But for all his outward self-confidence, Billy is still the outsider who wants to be accepted for who he is. The trouble is he’s flamboyant, shamelessly narcissistic, and completely uninterested in fitting in unless it’s on his own terms. But when he’s viciously beaten up by members of the school football team, things begin to edge his way, and a wider acceptance makes itself felt, an acceptance that is put to the test when Billy decides to run for Homecoming Queen…

Anyone coming to Freak Show might find themselves wondering if its origins lay between the pages of a Young Adult novel, and those assumptions would be right. Adapted from the novel of the same name by self-styled celebutante James St. James, Freak Show is a movie predicated to the idea of individuality above all else, and being true to yourself, even if you’re not sure just who you are yet. It’s an ode to persevering against the odds, but told in an uneven and often uncertain way thanks to a screenplay by Patrick J.Clifton and Beth Rigazio that can’t decide if Billy should fully integrate into high school life or remain a consenting outsider. Outside of school, Billy lives with his father (Pine) who doesn’t understand him, and he dreams of the day his mother (Midler) will come to rescue him from the terrible life he really doesn’t lead. Within school, Billy makes friends with Blah Blah Blah (Robb), who thinks he’s amazing, and football star Flip (Nelson) who has an artistic side he doesn’t feel he can express except when he’s around Billy.

The relationship that develops between Billy and Flip occupies a lot of the movie’s running time, and it spends a lot of that time not going where you might expect it to (but then it does). It’s not always handled well, and there’s a frankly embarrassing moment between Flip and Billy’s mother that has all the dramatic subtlety of a police baton strike to the lower right thigh (sorry, wrong movie). Billy’s decision to run for Homecoming Queen includes the movie’s heartfelt plea for tolerance, and though it’s beautifully expressed by Lawther, the movie tries to be ironic immediately after – and doesn’t even come close. With the screenplay also unable to pin down its approach to gender politics, it’s left to Lawther and the make up, costume and wardrobe departments to provide a series of outfits that best express Billy’s glamour obsessed personality, and in doing so to gloss over the movie’s various shortcomings, not the least of which is Breslin’s God-bothering rival for the Homecoming Queen tiara, Lynette. It is Lawther’s movie though, the young actor giving a relaxed, confident, and sincere performance that keeps Billy sympathetic throughout, even when it’s hard to feel entirely sorry for him.

Rating: 6/10 – bolstered by a terrific performance from Lawther, but hampered at the same time by so many high school movie clichés it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, Freak Show is at least funny when it’s trying to be, but tiresome when it’s trying to be serious; with its mixed messages centering around individuality and integration, the movie is only half as effective as it should be, and too often opts for warm and fuzzy when it should be direct and uncomfortable.

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Monthly Roundup – September 2015

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Smokescreen (1964) / D: Jim O’Connolly / 70m

Cast: Peter Vaughan, John Carson, Yvonne Romain, Gerald Flood, Glynn Edwards, John Glyn-Jones, Penny Morrell, Barbara Hicks, Sam Kydd, Deryck Guyler

Rating: 7/10 – bowler-hatted insurance fraud investigator Roper (Vaughan) is called in to investigate when a heavily insured businessman’s car bursts into flames before going over a cliff – but was he in it?; a neat, unprepossessing British thriller, Smokescreen features an enjoyable performance from Vaughan, some stunning location photography, and a script that allows for plenty of ironic humour in amongst the drama.

Smokescreen

Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (2014) / D: Miguel Arteta / 81m

Cast: Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, Ed Oxenbould, Dylan Minnette, Kerris Dorsey, Sidney Fullmer, Bella Thorne, Megan Mullally

Rating: 7/10 – when overlooked youngest child Alexander (Oxenbould) has the worst day ever, he wishes that his family could experience just a little of what he has to deal with – but when they do, things quickly escalate beyond anything that Alexander has ever faced; Judith Viorst’s novel gets a fun-filled adaptation that is amusing, clever, and visually inventive, but which lacks bite, and has surprisingly few characters to root for (that is, none).

Alexander etc

She Wants Me (2012) / D: Rob Margolies / 85m

Cast: Josh Gad, Kristen Ruhlin, Johnny Messner, Aaron Yoo, Hilary Duff, Melonie Diaz, Wayne Knight, Charlie Sheen

Rating: 6/10 – an ambitious though neurotic writer (Gad) working on his first screenplay faces a dilemma when the role written for his girlfriend (Ruhlin) grabs the attention of an A-list actress (Duff); a romantic comedy with few ambitions that struggles to make good comedy out of anxious indecision, She Wants Me is innocuous stuff that passes by in amiable fashion without ever really involving its audience.

She Wants Me

12 Rounds 3: Lockdown (2015) / D: Stephen Reynolds / 90m

Cast: Dean Ambrose, Roger R. Cross, Daniel Cudmore, Lochlyn Munro, Ty Olsson, Sarah Smyth, Rebecca Marshall, Kirby Morrow

Rating: 3/10 – an honest cop (Ambrose) finds himself trapped in a station house and hunted by several of his corrupt colleagues when he comes into possession of evidence that will see them put away for the rest of their lives; another depressing WWE Films action movie, 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown dispenses with the set up of the first two movies, and does its best to be yet another Die Hard rip-off, albeit one stifled by inept plotting, terrible dialogue and a performance by Ambrose that never gets started.

12 Rounds 3 Lockdown

Perfect Sisters (2014) / D: Stanley M. Brooks / 100m

Cast: Abigail Breslin, Georgie Henley, Mira Sorvino, James Russo, Rusty Schwimmer, Zoë Belkin, Jeffrey Ballard, Zak Santiago

Rating: 5/10 – two sisters (Breslin, Henley), fed up with the antics of their alcoholic mother (Sorvino) and her poor choice in boyfriends, decide the only way of improving their lives is to kill her; if it wasn’t based on a true story, Perfect Sisters would be dismissed as absurd nonsense with no basis in reality, but as it is it’s an uneven, tonally awkward movie that features average performances from its leads, but which does seem completely committed to drawing the viewer’s attention to Breslin’s cleavage at every opportunity.

Perfect Sisters

Ferrell Takes the Field (2015) / D: Brian McGinn / 49m

With: Will Ferrell

Rating: 5/10 – in support of a friend’s cancer charity, Will Ferrell takes to the baseball field to play all nine positions for ten major league teams at five separate pre-season games, and all in one day; if the charity had been the Reassure Will Ferrell He’s Still Funny Charity, then this would have made more sense because Ferrell Takes the Field is a mercifully brief documentary that sees the comedian attempt to appear relevant in an arena where he has no real talent, and where, when he gets it wrong, he’s quite rightly booed by fans, leaving viewers to wonder why on earth this idea was commissioned in the first place.

Ferrell Takes the Field

Axe to Grind (2015) / D: Matt Zettell / 81m

Cast: Debbie Rochon, Guy Torry, Matthew James Gulbranson, Paula Labaredas, Michelle Tomlinson, Dani Thompson, Adrian Quihuis, Tony von Halle

Rating: 2/10 – when the producer of her latest film tells aging actress Debbie Wilkins (Rochon) that her role has gone to another, younger actress, it sets her on a killing spree that sees her despatch the cast and crew, and anyone else who gets in her way; low-budget horror always runs the risk of being offensively stupid, and Axe to Grind is no exception, as it treats its audience with disdain while failing to appear as clever and entertaining as it thinks it is.

Axe to Grind

The Toughest Gun in Tombstone (1958) / D: Earl Bellamy / 72m

Cast: George Montgomery, Jim Davis, Beverly Tyler, Gerald Milton, Don Beddoe, Scotty Morrow, Harry Lauter

Rating: 6/10 – with outlaws running most of the nascent state of Arizona, the Governor assigns Matt Sloane (Montgomery) and a team of undercover officers to apprehend the gang involved with cattle rustling and silver thefts; a modest Western that tells its simple story plainly and with few frills, The Toughest Gun in Tombstone is acceptable fare that doesn’t exert itself too much, but is enjoyable nonetheless.

Toughest Gun in Tombstone, The

Absolution (2015) / D: Keoni Waxman / 91m

aka The Mercenary: Absolution

Cast: Steven Seagal, Byron Mann, Adina Stetcu, Vinnie Jones, Howard Dell, Josh Barnett, Maria Bata, Dominte Cosmin

Rating: 4/10 – mercenary John Alexander (Seagal) and his colleague Chi (Mann) find themselves battling both a criminal syndicate and their own corrupt boss when a contract killing proves to have larger ramifications; another mumbling, stand-in heavy performance from Seagal detracts from what is – for him – a better outing than of late, and thanks to Mann’s athleticism and Jones’ snarling villain, any scenes where Seagal doesn’t take part are actually halfway enjoyable.

Absolution

Vacuity (2012) / D: Michael Matzur / 14m

Cast: Michael Steppe

Rating: 6/10 – an astronaut, Alan Brahm (Steppe), stranded in an airlock while the space station he’s on begins to fall apart has a choice: either save his crew by jettisoning the airlock (but dooming himself), or save himself and get back to Earth (and dooming the crew) – which choice will he take?; as moral dilemmas go, the one facing Alan Brahm in Vacuity is, on the face of it, fairly cut and dried, but thanks to Matzur’s script and Steppe’s performance you’re never quite sure how things will play out, or even if either choice will be taken away from him, making this short movie a model of concisely focused drama.

Vacuity

Mini-Review: Final Girl (2015)

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Final Girl

D: Tyler Shields / 84m

Cast: Abigail Breslin, Wes Bentley, Alexander Ludwig, Logan Huffman, Cameron Bright, Reece Thompson, Emma Paetz

Following the death of her parents at a young age, Veronica (Breslin) grows up in the care of William (Bentley), who trains her to become an assassin. Years later as a teenager, she’s told about a group of four young men whose idea of fun is to take young women out into the woods and hunt them before killing them. The group is led by Jameson (Ludwig); at the diner where the four meet, Veronica attracts his attention and he insists she meet him there the following Saturday night. Before he meets her he picks up his friends, Shane (Bright), Nelson (Thompson) and Danny (Huffman).

The group take Veronica out to the woods where at first they play a game of truth or dare. When she mentions the name of their last victim, they start to become suspicious, and it leads to a dare called Die. Jameson explains that Veronica will be given a five-minute head start, and then she’ll be hunted down and killed. As she heads off into the woods they’re unaware that the tables will soon be turned on them, and the kind of prey you’re used to hunting will prove to be more than a match for all of them.

Final Girl - scene

With so much unexplained or explored, Final Girl could well be the most frustrating movie of 2015. A degree of mystery is fine in any movie, but here it’s taken to extremes, with motivations, actions and the reasons for certain decisions left out altogether; all any viewer can hope for is that it all makes sense in the end. Sadly, thanks to Adam Prince’s poorly constructed screenplay, it doesn’t, and ends with a scene that adds preposterousness to an already ridiculous mix (the inclusion of some hallucinations doesn’t help either). We never learn why William takes Veronica under his wing, or why he trains her to be an assassin, or why the group do what they do, or how they’ve managed to kill twenty blonde young women and gotten away with it for so long in what appears to be a very small town.

The movie isn’t helped by a visual style that relies on spot lighting to make the woods look like a fairground (at night), and a wintry aesthetic that adds to the movie’s unappealing plot. With its Red Riding Hood overtones and cod-indie dialogue allied to a  hunt sequence that is anything but a hunt sequence, the movie becomes buried under the weight of its ill-conceived storyline(s) and never manages to dig its way out. Breslin is miscast, while Bentley’s efforts to be taciturn and remote seem more of a reflection of his wondering why he agreed to take part, and Ludwig doesn’t even try to make his character anything more than cruelly manipulative (which only goes so far). Shields, making his first feature, is out of his depth, and unable to make more of the script’s shortcomings, leaving the viewer stranded with no lifeline to cling onto. By the movie’s end, all you can hope for is that there won’t be any more of Veronica’s “assignments” in the future.

Rating: 3/10 – to paraphrase a popular saying, “awful is as awful does”, and Final Girl is pretty awful; seriously underwritten, and with the barest connection to credibility, the movie tries to be a psychological thriller without having the remotest idea of how to combine the two elements and make them work.

Maggie (2015)

09 Saturday May 2015

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Maggie

D: Henry Hobson / 95m

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson, Douglas M. Griffin, J.D. Evermore, Rachel Whitman Groves, Jodie Moore, Bryce Romero, Raeden Greer

In the near future, a virulent disease has arisen that eventually turns its victims into zombies. When farmer Wade Vogel (Schwarzenegger) tracks down his runaway daughter, Maggie (Breslin), he finds her in a big city hospital where she’s been treated for a bite wound inflicted by one of the infected. At this point the rules are clear: in six to eight weeks, depending on how fast the infection spreads through Maggie’s body, she should be taken to a quarantine facility.

Wade takes her home, where Maggie finds that her stepmother, Caroline (Richardson), is preparing to send Maggie’s stepbrother and -sister off to stay with their aunt. Caroline is nervous around Maggie and is fearful as to how things will play out. Her fears begin to come true when Maggie has an accident and breaks a finger; Maggie’s reaction is to cut it off. With Wade doing his best to keep Maggie safe and protected, an encounter with two neighbours who have “turned” leads to the local police becoming aware of Maggie’s condition. When they remind Wade of his obligation to take her to a quarantine facility, Wade is blunt: if he doesn’t, he’ll resist any attempts they make to take her themselves.

A visit to the local doctor, Vern Kaplan (Moore), reveals the infection is spreading faster than expected, and that Maggie could “turn” at any time. She gets a visit from her friend, Allie (Greer), who convinces her to meet up with her old friends, including Trenton (Romero), who is also infected and waiting to be quarantined. They spend some time by themselves, and Maggie experiences a degree of happiness she hasn’t felt since being bitten. But when she traps and feeds on a fox, it proves too much for Caroline and she leaves. Wade stays with Maggie as she continues to get worse, though another visit from the police highlights just how little time they have left together. With Maggie struggling to fight against her new “craving”, Wade has to decide which decision to make: either take her to quarantine, or carry out a mercy killing.

Maggie - scene

While Maggie will no doubt arouse some curiosity due to the presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger in a horror movie – let’s not count End of Days (1999), which was more of an action thriller with supernatural overtones – it would be a mistake to so casually describe what is actually an effective, emotionally-charged drama as simply a horror movie. This isn’t George A. Romero country, where limbs are ripped off and entrails pulled out of stomachs, but rather a poignant, understated examination of parental devotion in a time of despair.

As the beleaguered father, Schwarzenegger displays a range of emotions and a sense of pathos that shows just how far he’s come as an actor, and his presence here soon becomes more than a piece of stunt casting designed to give the movie a better chance at the box office. He’s very, very good in a role that allows him to be both imposing and vulnerable at the same time, and in a way where those aspects aren’t contradictory. Here, Schwarzenegger exudes a weary resignation as a father trying to hold on to a few more precious days with his daughter, and praying for the best. He uses his features – normally so passive – to great effect, giving clear expression to Wade’s doubts and apprehensions throughout, and there are moments where you genuinely feel for the character and what he’s going through.

Breslin is equally as good as the affected Maggie, struggling with trying to remain normal, and holding on to memories of her mother and her pre-infection past. She portrays the character’s anguish and terror at what’s happened – and is happening – to her with such conviction that the tragedy of Maggie’s physical deterioration and path to “turning” is all too horrible to watch. There’s a scene toward the end of the movie where Wade has fallen asleep in a chair and Maggie kisses his head – and then lingers for an uncomfortably long time. Thanks to John Scott 3’s measured, insightful script and Breslin’s astute performance the viewer can’t be sure if Maggie’s kiss will lead to something more terrible, or will remain just a kiss.

The tone of the movie, with its slow, deliberate pace and desaturated visuals, reflects the grim nature of the narrative, and it’s sensitively handled by first-time director Hobson. He steers clear of making Maggie’s plight too melodramatic, or imbuing her relationship with her father with any unnecessary or forced sentimentality. The wider world around them is painted with a harsh realism, with its ruined city and fields of burning crops propelling clouds of smoke into the grey skies. With a sense of impending doom present from the outset, it would be easy to assume that Maggie is a gloomy, depressing experience, but again, Hobson avoids such a pitfall by obtaining two pitch perfect performances from his two leads, and by leavening the drama with flashes of humour and never losing sight of the fierce love Wade has for his daughter.

By making this the focal point of the movie, Maggie transcends its initial appearance as yet another zombie movie in a genre that’s been done to death in recent years, and proves rewarding for holding back on all the gore. Aside from the consequences of Maggie’s gradual physical decay, the make up effects are used sparingly and to greater effect, and help keep the spotlight on the emotional devastation wrought by Maggie’s condition.

Rating: 8/10 – there’s much to admire here, not the least of which is Schwarzenegger’s quietly authoritative performance and an overall approach that aims for realism (in a fantasy genre) and succeeds in its ambitions; while it may not be to all tastes, and its dour, sombre mood may put some people off, this is still well worth seeking out, and has a subtlety and power that most movies in the genre can only dream of.

Wicked Blood (2014)

28 Wednesday May 2014

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Wicked Blood

aka Bad Blood

D: Mark H. Young / 92m

Cast: Abigail Breslin, Sean Bean, James Purefoy, Alexa Vega, Lew Temple, Jake Busey, Jody Quigley

Hannah Lee Baker (Breslin) and her sister Amber (Vega) live in a small Southern town. Both their parents are dead and they live with their uncle Donny (Temple). Hannah is something of a chess prodigy and views the world around her in terms of a tournament match, with the pieces on the board representing the people she interacts with. The king is her uncle Frank (Bean), the local crime boss. After receiving a threatening visit from the FBI about Frank, she hatches a plan to leave town and take her sister and Donny with her. She approaches Frank and asks for a job making drug deliveries at $20 a time. He agrees to the job but gives her only $10 a time. Picking up the drugs from the trailer where Donny cooks it, her first delivery is to biker Bill Owens (Purefoy), a meth dealer who acts as Frank’s distributor; unknown to Hannah, Bill has begun seeing Amber.

When some of the drugs Bill has been distributing prove to be cut with vitamins, he tells Frank about it and asks for compensation. When Frank refuses to pay, an argument breaks out between Bill’s buddy Jackson (Quigley) and Frank’s brother Bobby (Busey). Bobby is keen to hit back at Bill and Jackson for their being disrespectful but Frank needs Bill to continue distributing his meth. Nevertheless, Bobby kills Jackson and another of Bill’s associates, but Bill doesn’t retaliate. He tells Hannah (who he’s now befriended) that he doesn’t want a war. He’s also fallen in love with Amber and doesn’t want to jeopardise his relationship with her. Meanwhile, Hannah is trying to convince Donny to leave with her and Amber but he’s too afraid of what Frank will do if he does; he’s also addicted to the product he makes.

Things are brought to a head when Bobby, who has a crush on Amber, sees her with Bill. One night he goes to collect her at Frank’s request but she refuses to go. When he grabs her she fights back but Bobby overpowers her and beats her half to death before dumping her body outside town. When she wakes up in the hospital, Bobby pays her a visit and threatens to hurt Hannah if Amber says anything. But Hannah guesses the truth and seeks Bill’s help. He refuses though, leaving Hannah to seek revenge on her own, and set in motion a series of events that will either see her plan come to fruition, or find her dead at the hands of her uncle Frank.

Wicked Blood - scene

From its low-key opening, with Hannah playing chess against a little boy, to its downbeat ending at the trailer, Wicked Blood is a crime drama that aspires to be something more than just another tale of one person’s determination to break free from hometown ties. Hannah’s need to escape is highlighted by her serious demeanour: she finds it difficult to find any amusement in life, brushing off the attentions of a skateboarder with undisguised disdain, and being told by Donny that she doesn’t smile anymore. She relies on her plan, adapting it when necessary, refusing to let go of it, or come up with another one. The allusion to chess, that it’s not just a game, the same as Life, is firmly made, and Hannah’s focus is unwavering. It all adds up to a character who is entirely believable, despite her teenage years, and Hannah is ably brought to life by Breslin. It’s a strong performance, utterly credible and a clear indication that Breslin isn’t going to be one of those child actors that doesn’t make the transition to adult roles.

With such a strong central character it would be natural to expect a slight drop-off in the quality of the remaining individuals the movie is concerned with. But thanks to the quality of the script, courtesy of director Young, this isn’t the case. Frank is presented more as a businessman than a crime boss (though these days the two roles aren’t so dissimilar); for most of the movie he sits in a darkened office poring over balance sheets. It’s a given that he’s a hard man, but it’s a subtler performance from Bean than might be expected, and even when the expected outburst of violence occurs towards the movie’s end, it’s a tribute to Young’s script – and Bean as well – that Frank doesn’t just become a psycho with a gun. Equally memorable is Temple’s performance as drug-addled Donny, a man who recognises the dead end his life has become, and who clings to Hannah’s offer of a new life with a mixture of childish hope and diminished longing.

In comparison, Purefoy has the harder task of making Owens’ passivity credible, and it’s not until he makes an unexpected confession to Hannah that his reluctance to engage with Frank is fully understood. It’s a difficult role, and one of the few areas where the script doesn’t entirely convince, but Purefoy is such a good actor that he never quite loses the credibility the character needs. Amber is a secondary character, a little naive but with a good heart even if she and Hannah are at loggerheads like most sisters, and Vega brings a confidence to the role that makes Amber both level-headed and hopelessly romantic at the same time. As Bobby, Busey has the most generic role, that of slow-thinking muscle to Frank’s brains, but imbues the character with a kind of nervous puppy energy that makes Bobby scarily unpredictable.

The small-town milieu is well represented by a handful of recurring locations, and there’s an emotive score courtesy of Elia Cmiral. Young shows a liking for low-level camerawork which allows for several shots to stand out in terms of space and composition, and the violence, when it comes, is almost casually brutal yet effective. All in all, Wicked Blood is a well-paced drama whose only drawbacks are its predictability and its repeated use of chess as a metaphor for life, but thanks to Young’s assured handling of the material as a whole, it remains absorbing and potent throughout.

Rating: 7/10 – a well-worn idea given a spirited interpretation by Young, and bolstered by strong turns from its cast, Wicked Blood has a quiet, slow burn intensity that works well; easy to overlook considering how many other low-key crime dramas are out there, but definitely worth a look, and a rewarding one at that.

Ender’s Game (2013)

10 Monday Feb 2014

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Ender's Game

D: Gavin Hood / 114m

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley, Abigail Breslin, Nonso Anozie

Adapted from Orson Scott Card’s novel of the same name, Ender’s Game places us at a time in the future when Earth has been attacked by an alien race called the Formics. Having repelled them but with the threat of their return looming, an International Force has been formed to address the issue and prepare for the Formics return.  Believing that children with the best tactical minds will provide the best possible offence agains the Formics, a Battle School has been set up in orbit around Earth.  Taking part is Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Butterfield).  Watched over by Colonel Graff (Ford), Ender shows promise but is weighed down by feelings of guilt and self-doubt brought on by being a “third”; his older brother and sister have both attended the training programme but failed to make the grade.  But Graff fast-tracks his progress, seeing in Ender’s tough, unwavering approach to dealing with combat situations the key to defeating the Formics.

At Command School, on the edge of the Formic territory, Ender confirms Graff’s opinion of his abilities and under the tutelage of war hero Mazer Rackham (Kingsley).  Ender takes part in several simulated attacks but doesn’t always come out on top.  With one last simulation left in which to prove himself, Ender has to use all his skills to defeat Rackham’s programme.

With Card’s novel having gained so much prestige over the years, and with Card himself regarding it as unfilmable for so long, his involvement in this production is baffling.  Under Hood’s guidance, Ender’s Game is something of a disappointment, dragged down as it is by flaccid pacing and a script that lacks tension throughout.  The opening sequence, with its Formic attack looking too much like an outtake from Independence Day (1996), lacks the level of excitement required to make the Formic threat a viable one for the audience.  It’s a short sequence and they’re defeated almost straight away, so where’s the threat that everyone’s so worried about?

Ender's Game - scene

The rest of the movie never really resolves this issue, or makes the Formics anything other than a glorified boogeyman, and while this later proves to be the point, the fact that there’s so little actual “threat” undermines the movie and takes away a lot of the intended drama.  As it is, we’re left with war simulations set in zero gravity, Graff insisting Ender is the “one” at every turn, a video game (with some worryingly Nineties graphics) that may or may not be reflecting Ender’s inner emotional turmoil, and an increasing sense that the movie is more padding than substance.  It all looks good, and the zero gravity sequences are well-staged but as there’s no doubt that Ender will triumph each time, even those sequences fail to excite as much as they should.

Hood’s adaptation ultimately undermines the cast and gives them little to do except spout clumsy lines of dialogue, or struggle to find an emotional through-line.  Ford, in particular, is saddled with a character so badly written he’s a hair’s-breadth away from being one-dimensional.  Secondary characters such as Viola Davis’s Major Anderson and Ender’s sister, Valentine (Breslin) fare even less well, given only limited screen time and even less opportunity to make an impression or a valuable contribution to the  plot.  But it’s Ender himself who comes off worst, portrayed by Butterfield as a martinet in short pants, a little Napoleon who has no empathy for anyone but Valentine, and whose attempts at concern for others comes off as stilted and unconvincing.  Faced with a leading character that the audience has trouble identifying with, Ender’s Game fails to engage on an emotional level, and the movie is reduced to a series of video game-style simulations and war games that are muddled in execution and less than thrilling.

Given that Card’s novel came under fire for its violence, and this adaptation strays away from any graphic depictions, there’s still the underlying theme of genocide propping up the plot.  Poorly handled at the movie’s conclusion, this theme would have added more depth to proceedings if it had been brought more to the fore, and much earlier on.  Instead, we have a movie that is more family-oriented and possessed of much less bite.

Rating: 4/10 – not a complete disaster but close enough as to make very little difference; adaptations of sci-fi classics rarely turn out well and Ender’s Game does nothing to disprove the theory.