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Journey’s End (2017)

15 Friday Feb 2019

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D: Saul Dibb / 107m

Cast: Sam Claflin, Asa Butterfield, Paul Bettany, Toby Jones, Stephen Graham, Tom Sturridge, Robert Glenister, Miles Jupp, Rupert Wickham

March 1918, Northern France. With rumours growing of a German push to break the deadlock that currently exists, the British have decided that each company should spend six days of every month on the Front Line. On the eighteenth it’s the turn of Company C, led by Captain Stanhope (Claflin). Once at the trenches, Stanhope and his second in command, Lieutenant Osborne (Betttany), discover that they are low on weapons, and even lower on supplies. The arrival of Second Lieutenant Ralegh (Butterfield), who was at school with Stanhope (albeit three years below him), doesn’t aid matters as Stanhope has taken to heavy drinking as a way of dealing with the stress of being in command, and he doesn’t want Ralegh writing home about him (Stanhope is in a relationship with Ralegh’s sister, Margaret). This causes a rift between them that is further abrogated when a raid is required and Ralegh returns alive, though others don’t. With the German offensive revealed to be taking place on the twenty-first, and Company C being tasked with holding the line, Stanhope and his men prepare themselves for the worst…

The fifth screen adaptation of R.C. Sherriff’s play of the same name, Journey’s End relies heavily on its creator’s theatrical inspirations and presents much of the action as if this was a filmed stage production. This isn’t a bad thing on the whole, as it keeps the material confined in physical terms, making any escape from the officer’s quarters (where most of the movie takes place) or the front line trenches, entirely welcome, even though it’s likely to be fleeting. Focusing instead on the psychological damage suffered by Captain Stanhope and its effects on the officers around him, their quarters are another battleground for the group to navigate. Osborne, known as “Uncle” to the other men, is forbearing and supportive, but not so forgiving when Stanhope acts in bad faith, as when he plans to read, and censor if necessary, Ralegh’s letters home. Trotter (Graham) is the brunt of Stanhope’s unkind jokes but seems inured to them, while Hibbert (Sturridge) has his own struggles, and tries to avoid fighting by claiming an illness. Ralegh has a bad case of hero worship, and has a hard time getting to grips with a much different Stanhope than the one he knew in school.  As the fateful day approaches, Stanhope’s anger and self-loathing at the man he’s become is displayed in markedly different ways, and with markedly different results.

By retaining the close quarters and intense emotional outbursts that Stanhope has no choice but to express, Simon Reade’s anxiety-inducing screenplay and Saul Dibb’s assured direction maintain a tight grip on the narrative, and make this adaptation genuinely affecting. Any melodramatics are kept to a minimum, and the claustrophobic setting adds its own power to the mix, but its the performances that elevate the familiarity of the material and make it impactful. Claflin takes Stanhope’s self-hatred and sense of duty and makes them two sides of a divided character whose commitment is never in doubt even as he spirals ever further towards self-destruction. Butterfield as Ralegh is the perfect embodiment of innocence informed by inexperience and boyish exuberance, while Bettany is quiet and contemplative, yet just as aware that a soldier can only count on so much luck to survive the absurdities thrown up by war (and so it proves). Even down to the supporting roles, the movie is perfectly cast (Jones is particularly memorable as the dyspeptic cook, Mason), so that when the raid, and then the offensive, actually put them at risk, the movie has succeeded in making the viewer care about them. The story may not be new any more, but this is one version that succeeds by acknowledging this and relying on Sherriff’s original themes to get its message across – and it does so with passion and conviction.

Rating: 8/10 – with a necessarily gloomy visual style to support the gravity of the characters’ situation, Journey’s End isn’t interested in the politics of the era, or the stupidity of the military top brass (though these are accepted), but in the hopes and fears, and the camaraderie, of the men who fought so bravely; fatalistic and yet strangely optimistic as well, this is affecting and sincere, and a powerful reminder – if it were needed – that in war the idea of “winners” is patently, and utterly absurd.

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Then Came You (2018)

09 Saturday Feb 2019

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D: Peter Hutchings / 97m

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Maisie Williams,Nina Dobrev, Ken Jeong, Tyler Hoechlin, David Koechner, Peyton List, Tituss Burgess, Sonya Walger, Colin Moss

(And the award for worst movie poster of 2018 goes to…)

Calvin (Butterfield) is nineteen and a committed hypochondriac: he keeps a journal of his symptoms, and is a regular at his long-suffering doctor’s. When his doctor sends him to a cancer support group in the hopes that it will put Calvin’s “problems” into perspective, he meets Skye (Williams), a sixteen year old whose condition is terminal. Skye latches on to Calvin, and browbeats him into helping her tick off the items on her bucket list. As they get to know each other better, and Calvin sees how Skye copes with her illness (and her impending demise), his own fears and worries begin to fall away, and he even entertains the idea of talking to the woman of his dreams, an air stewardess called Izzy (Dobrov) (Calvin works as a baggage handler at the local airport). With Skye and Calvin’s friendship helping both of them to recognise what’s important in their lives, a reticence on Calvin’s part threatens his budding relationship with Izzy, while Skye comes to realise that the items on her bucket list aren’t as important as she first thought…

And we’re back… in that strange realm where teenagers are saddled with the kind of emotional baggage that can only come from having back stories forged in the mind of a cruel screenwriter (here the wonderfully named Fergal Rock). Calvin’s hypochondria is the by-product of the guilt he feels for surviving the car accident that killed his twin sister when they were eight. Skye’s devil-may-care attitude hides her genuine fear of dying before she’s had a chance to really experience life. And in true movie fashion, their friendship allows them both to shrug off the emotional chains that they’ve allowed themselves to carry around (like teenage versions of Jacob Marley’s ghost), and to become better people as a result. All of which begs the question, just why is teenage suffering so widely explored in the movies? And why is it so often explored in such a lightweight, overly familiar, and generally superficial manner as it is here? Even if you had never seen this kind of movie before, you’d still be able to work out its dynamic and where it’s headed, and pretty quickly too. It’s a strange conundrum – why keep combining a coming of age drama with a tragic, illness of the week scenario?

In the hands of Rock and director Peter Hutchings, Then Came You lacks surprises, depth, and any appreciable consistency in the tone of the material, preferring instead to make an amiable comedy out of dying, and to use one character’s terminal illness to make another character feel better about themselves. If this leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, it’s as nothing to the scene where Calvin takes Skye to visit his sister’s grave, and explains how she died. It’s such a monumentally insensitive thing for Calvin to do, and yet you can tell this is meant to be one of those “important” moments that speaks to the pain he’s been suffering (poor thing!). Badly thought out as it is, it could have been a whole lot worse, but thanks to the combined efforts of Butterfield and Williams, scenes such as this one, and many others, look and sound better than they would do under closer inspection. Their performances (and Dobrov’s) are enjoyable, and their efforts allow Calvin and Skye’s relationship to appear more credible than it has any right to be. And this all speaks to the overall problem that the movie struggles to overcome: it never feels real and it never feels as if you could ever meet the likes of Calvin and Skye in real life.

Rating: 4/10 – with its central message – if you’re feeling bad about yourself, go find someone who’s worse off than you – Then Came You is a romantic comedy drama that plays derivatively as a romance, uneasily as a comedy, and disastrously as a drama; its attempts at being quirky fall flat, and without its talented cast to prop it up, it would all collapse like a poorly cooked soufflé, an analogy that is entirely apt once you realise just how little this movie has to say about death, love, and finding happiness.

Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)

01 Thursday Nov 2018

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D: Crispian Mills / 104m

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Finn Cole, Simon Pegg, Michael Sheen, Hermione Corfield, Nick Frost, Max Raphael, Kit Connor, Isabella Laughland, Tom Rhys Harries, Louis Strong, Margot Robbie

Slaughterhouse is a traditional English boarding school, with the sons and daughters of the rich and famous and the establishment primed to follow in their parents’ footsteps. When a rare placement comes the way of Don Wallace (Cole), a teenager from a single parent, working class background, he doesn’t really want to go, but does so to please his mother. Once there, he’s placed in a room with Willoughby Blake (Butterfield), whose disaffection with the school leads him to carry out small acts of subversion. But the cruelties and occasional moments of relief from life at Slaughterhouse soon take a back seat to the consequences of a nearby fracking operation that has opened up a sinkhole. On a weekend when most of the pupils have gone home, the headmaster (Sheen), one of the teachers (Pegg), Don and Willoughby, along with a number of other pupils, find themselves fighting off attacks by a “frack” of subterranean monsters that have emerged from the sinkhole. It’s time to put personal differences aside and keep each other alive…

You know that feeling when you’re around five to ten minutes into a movie and you just know that you’re going to be disappointed – because you are already? That’s the feeling viewers of the first feature from Stolen Picture, a production company set up by stars Pegg and Frost, will have once they’ve started watching this ill-advised and poorly assembled comedy horror. It’s not just that Slaughterhouse Rulez isn’t that funny, or very effective in terms of its horror elements, it doesn’t work because it’s another movie that tries waaaaay too hard to be funny, scary, and exciting all at the same time, while not being able to strike a proper balance between all three. The script – by Mills and Henry Fitzherbert – adopts a kitchen sink approach to the comedy, with physical pratfalls, visual gags, terrible puns or references (you can guess the line that inevitably accompanies the apparent demise of the headmaster’s dog, Mr Chips), and lots of frightened yelling, screaming and running in fear. Like much else in the movie, it’s these efforts, and the extended effort that goes into them, that make you wonder if everyone’s trying too hard because they know the material isn’t strong enough to support itself.

So, the comedy is broad and buffoon-like, with the adult characters suffering the most, from Pegg’s lovelorn teacher, to Frost’s stoner anti-fracking campaigner, to Sheen’s priggish headmaster. These are caricature performances that have been done to death in dozens of other British (so-called) comedies, and they’re still not funny even now. The horror relies on gory special effects, and rapid fire editing to hide the deficiencies of the animatronics and prosthetics, while the monsters themselves look like they wouldn’t even pass muster in a Doctor Who episode. It’s also a movie that  fails to exploit the issue of fracking and approaches it in a simplistic, “fracking is bad” fashion that makes the whole thing a plot contrivance instead of anything more rigorous. Potshots at boarding school life are numerous but offer nothing new, and the characters are as passively stereotypical as you’d expect. Tasked with breathing life into a movie that begins tired and winds up positively comatose by the end, the cast can only struggle to make their characters’ plight convincing; though they’re hampered by Mills’ pedestrian and uninspired direction. A disappointing movie, then, and one that would have benefited from taking more risks with the material than it does.

Rating: 4/10 – not the auspicious debut for their production company that Pegg and Frost would have wished for, Slaughterhouse Rulez lacks energy and purpose, and doesn’t even charm on a pizza-and-beer-on-a-Saturday-night basis; as it goes through the motions, the same will be true of viewers wondering how they can escape this mess with their sanity intact.

The House of Tomorrow (2017)

26 Sunday Aug 2018

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D: Peter Livolsi / 86m

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Alex Wolff, Nick Offerman, Ellen Burstyn, Maude Apatow, Michaela Watkins

The House of Tomorrow is a museum built to honour the life and work of noted futurist R. Buckminster Fuller. Run by one of his devotees, Josephine Prendergast (Burstyn) and her grandson, Sebastian (Butterfield), it sits in a beautiful woodland setting but doesn’t have a lot of visitors. When a Lutheran church group led by their pastor, Alan Whitcomb (Offerman), and including his son, Jared (Wolff), take a tour one day, Josephine suffers a stroke. While she’s in hospital, Sebastian finds himself spending more and more time with Jared, and experiencing his first actual friendship. Jared has recently had a heart transplant, and has ambitions to start a punk rock band. He convinces Sebastian to be the band’s bass player, but the time they spend together begins to interfere with Sebastian’s work at the museum, especially when Josephine returns home. Wanting to broaden his horizons, but afraid of hurting his grandmother, Sebastian finds himself living a double life. When Alan refuses to allow Jared’s band a spot at a church talent show, Sebastian uses subterfuge to ensure the museum can be used as a venue instead, something that has far-reaching consequences…

Sometimes it’s hard to work out just what would happen if the movies didn’t have the coming of age tale to revisit over and over. Dozens, if not hundreds of movies each year would vanish from the release schedules, and literary adaptations such as this one – from Peter Bognanni’s novel – would no longer see the light of day. On the one hand, that might be a good thing; just how many times can a teenager be seen to make the same mistakes in a variety of guises without it becoming tiresome? The answer, of sorts, can be found in The House of Tomorrow, a mostly well handled indie drama that takes a home-schooled innocent and throws him head first into the world in order to help him take the first steps towards maturity. Along the way, Sebastian learns to lie and steal (and apparently without regret), and to explore new experiences through his friendship with Jared, and Jared’s sister, Meredith (Apatow). In the hands of first-time writer/director Livolsi, all of this is treated very matter-of-factly, and in a deliberate manner that aids the material immensely, and which prompts good performances from all concerned.

However, though the movie is, on the whole, a good one, it does suffer from a kind of narrative indolence that it can’t avoid no matter how hard Livolsi and his talented cast try. Sebastian’s journey is so familiar to audiences, and the story is so predictable, that it robs the movie of any emotional impact. There’s simply not enough here to resonate, whether it’s Jared’s rebellious spirit and punk sensibility, or his heart condition, or Josephine’s increasing sadness and fear as she begins to understand Sebastian is willingly drifting away from her. Here, all this narrative familiarity is at least offset by the aforementioned quality of the performances (with Offerman on particularly good form), and Livolsi’s attention to detail, but even with Corey Walter’s savvy cinematography and a punk-centric soundtrack that includes tracks by The Stranglers and The Germs, The House of Tomorrow remains a movie that tries hard but succeeds only in offering a number of expected conclusions and outcomes. Even the use of R. Buckminster Fuller and his thoughts on architecture and systems design are used as an occasional diversion rather than as an integral part of the narrative. Which leaves little else for the casual viewer to enjoy, and that’s truly a shame.

Rating: 6/10 – lacking the depth or originality that could have elevated the material, The House of Tomorrow is a perfunctory coming of age tale that offers a diluted crash course in Teen Angst 101; while it’s not affecting, it is at least honest in its endeavours, but not so much that it offers viewers anything more than the barest of dramatic rewards.

The Space Between Us (2017)

04 Sunday Feb 2018

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D: Peter Chelsom / 121m

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Gary Oldman, Carla Gugino, Britt Robertson, BD Wong, Janet Montgomery, Gil Birmingham, Colin Egglesfield

In a strange version of the future that appears to be happening today, space exploration bigwig Nathaniel Shepherd (Oldman) announces the latest mission to Mars, and the crew that are going there to continue the Red Planet’s colonisation. But in one of those “What if?” scenarios that jump start way too many movies, the lone female astronaut, Sarah Elliot (Montgomery), proves to be pregnant. She gives birth to a son on Mars, and promptly dies from eclampsia. And from that moment on, The Space Between Us throws all sense and logic out of the window, and gallops headlong towards absurdity with all the gusto of a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. It’s unsurprising to learn that the movie has been in development in one form or another since 1999, when it was titled Mainland and its central protagonist was a boy born on the Moon. Put in turnaround until it was picked up again in 2014, the basic idea has remained the same – boy born in space wants to visit Earth – but the idea that his physiology would be compromised, perhaps fatally, has also remained. Tough break for the kid, huh? Just don’t think it about it too much, though – no, really, don’t.

The Space Between Us is a movie that wants to tell its cute romantic story against a backdrop of new-fangled technological advancement and old school moral dilemmas. It’s a movie that bounces from scene to scene with no clear through line, and which lets its lovers on the run scenario get sillier and sillier as Gardner and his only friend on Earth, Tulsa (Robertson), avoid capture by stealing cars at every turn staying one step ahead of a pursuing Shepherd and astronaut-nominally-playing-stepmother-to-Gardner Kendra (Gugino) (with all the technology at Shepherd’s disposal you wonder how he’s so bad at catching up to them). Gardner’s mission on Earth is to find his father, something that should be easy enough as he has a photo of the man with his mother, but the script throws huge curve balls in the way of this, including a detour to a shaman (Birmingham), and a sidetrip to an ER where Gardner’s bone implants (don’t ask) barely register as a concern. And along the way, Gardner gets a crash course in human relationships including how not to sound weird, and losing your virginity (not to be funny, but does anyone remember that Eighties movie, Earth Girls Are Easy?).

There are far too many moments and scenes where the average viewer will be asking themselves, Really? Most of them involve Oldman, whose performance can best be described as desperately seeking relevance. Stuck with some of the movie’s worst dialogue, the more than capable Oldman has no redress against the inanities of both the script and his character. It’s a similar situation for Butterfield, playing a role that requires him to be a science whizz on the one hand but one who’s learned absolutely zero social skills while growing up on Mars (yes, he’s smart and dumb at the same time). Gugino and Robertson have interchangeable roles once you take out the sex, and everyone else has no option but to go along with it all and hope for the best. In the director’s chair, Chelsom keeps things moving in the haphazard way the script (by Allan Loeb) dictates, but he appears to lose interest early on, while Barry Peterson’s sharp and detailed cinematography proves to be one of the movie’s few blessings. At several points, Gardner asks people, What’s your favourite thing about Earth? One answer seems obvious: being able to avoid seeing this inane, stupid movie.

Rating: 3/10 – with its tortured science (just think about the environment Gardner has been living in since birth and ask yourself, would he really suffer on Earth?), and equally tortured YA theatrics, The Space Between Us is a movie that trips over itself continually in its efforts to tell a coherent, relatable story; a waste of everybody’s time and effort, the hint should have been taken back in 1999 when rewrites on the original Mainland script proved unworkable.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

05 Saturday Nov 2016

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D: Tim Burton / 127m

Cast: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, Allison Janney, Chris O’Dowd, Terence Stamp, Finlay McMillan, Lauren McCrostie, Hayden Keeler-Stone, Georgia Pemberton, Milo Parker, Raffiella Chapman, Pixie Davies, Joseph Odwell, Thomas Odwell, Cameron King, Kim Dickens

Teenager Jake Portman (Butterfield) is very close to his grandfather, Abe (Stamp), who tells him stories of when he was a boy and lived on an island off the coast of Wales during the Second World War. Abe lived at Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a place where children with paranormal abilities could live freely and without fear of persecution. In time, Abe had to leave, but he’s never forgotten his time there, and he’s told Jake many stories during the course of Jake’s growing up, but Jake has always believed them to be Abe’s version of fairy stories. But one day, Jake finds his grandfather’s body in the woods near Abe’s home; he’s been attacked and his eyes removed. With his last breath, Abe exhorts Jake to find “the bird, the loop and September 3, 1943”.

The discovery of a letter from Miss Peregrine to Abe, added to advice given by Jake’s therapist (Janney), sees Jake and his dad, Franklin (O’Dowd), heading for Wales. They stay at the local inn, and soon, Jake is searching for the “peculiar” home. He finds it in ruins, the result of a direct hit by a German bomb on September 3, 1943. But while he marvels at confrmation of the home’s existence, several of the children Abe has told him about, make themselves known and draw Jake into their world. They travel through a “loop”, a part of time that has been folded in on itself and now re-plays the same day over and over: September 3, 1943. And Jake meets Miss Peregrine (Green) herself, the children’s guardian, called an Ymbryne, a bird able to take human form (and vice versa) and manipulate time.

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Miss Peregrine wastes no time in welcoming Jake into the home, and he spends the evening there until he realises his father will be looking for him. He returns as quickly as he can, but not before Miss Peregrine shows him just how dangerous it is outside of her protection. Jake sees a hideous creature called a “Hollowgast” come for the children before Miss Peregrine dispatches it with a crossbow. From there stems a warning relating to Wights, former Peculiars who have been the unfortunate victims of an experiment to harness an Ymbryne’s power. One Wight in particular, Mr Barron (Jackson), has made it his mission to track down all the Ymbrynes and take their eyes. But while the way through the loop remains hidden, the children are safe… until Jake unwittingly leads Mr Barron right to them…

When author Ransom Riggs’ novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was first published in 2011, it was an unexpected success. Riggs’ tale of peculiar children with strange abilities and the evil creatures that hunt them was the first in a trilogy of novels that breathed new life into gothic fantasy. It was obvious that a movie version would be made, and who better to bring the novel to life than Tim Burton? His brand of weird humour and his visual stylings were perfect for Miss Peregrine…, and with a script courtesy of Jane Goldman (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kingsman: The Secret Service), all the signs were good that the movie would be as dark and strange and captivating and exciting as the novel.

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And for the most part it is. Ultimately, it’s the adaptation that doesn’t work entirely, with Goldman unable to pin down the main storyline, and fumbling with the subtext relating to humans as monsters during World War II (it’s no coincidence that Abe is a Polish Jew and a survivor of the ghetto, and that the hollowgasts’ name sounds like something else from World War II). With the main ingredients of Riggs’ tale broadened at first and then allowed to carry on broadening, the movie ends up being only half as rewarding as it could have been. Things begin well with Stamp’s genial yet firm Abe trying to keep Jake safe from the threat of the Wights and the Hollowgasts, but once Abe dies there’s an uneasy switch from Abe and Jake to Jake and Franklin, and their trip to Wales. Goldman rushes things along and soon Jake is getting to know the likes of Emma Bloom (Purnell), who is lighter than air and has to be weighted down; Millard Nullings (King), an invisible boy; and Olive Abroholos Elephanta (McCrostie) who can set things alight just by touching them.

It’s this stretch of the movie that is the most enjoyable, as Jake (and the viewer) gets to know everyone, and the idyllic, if repetitive, nature of the children’s existence is explored. There are terrific performances from all the child actors playing the Peculiar Children of the title, and a wonderful performance from Green as their guardian. With her probing stare and knowing smiles, Green is the movie’s ace in the hole, and the movie misses her energy whenever she’s off screen. Once things start to unravel and Mr. Barron gains the upper hand, the movie pauses to regroup itself, and heads for a crowd-pleasing finale at the end of Blackpool Pier that involves a riotous showdown between Hollowgasts and animated skeletons á la Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Along the way it abandons any notion of cohesion and continuity, and its attempts to make sense of the time loop/time travel conundrum the Peculiars and Jake find themselves in are brief and inconclusive (and baffling to anyone not paying full attention).

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But while the script tries to work out how best to tell the story, and in doing so deviates from Riggs’ original halfway cliffhanger-ish ending, the movie is rescued by Burton and his striking visual compositions and the movie’s darkly exuberant set design and decoration. This is, at times, a sumptuous movie to watch, and Burton’s trademark gothic flair is well in evidence as he guides the viewer through a series of imaginative and impressive sequences that more than adequately show how good a fit for the material he is. But again, when the story has to take centre stage it’s often weak and lacking focus, though to be fair to Goldman she is trying to cram an awful lot into a two hour movie, and as good as she is as a screenwriter, when the source material is as detailed as it is, it’s unsurprising that some of the good stuff is going to be overlooked or a way for it all to fit in isn’t explored with any vigour.

Alongside Burton’s efforts, those of Green, Jackson, Stamp and Purnell are most welcome, with Jackson’s pantomime performance proving weirdly appropriate. Fans of the novel will be surprised to find that this is, unless a sequel is green-lit, a stand-alone movie with only a couple of nods to the book’s original ending. Does this work? The answer is impenetrable, either way. Fans and supporters of the novels will be disappointed that this isn’t the beginning of a series, and newcomers will most likely have wanted to spend more time getting to know all the peculiar’s; all in all, there’s something for everyone, just not as much for avid fans of the book.

Rating: 7/10 – with its script proving too wayward, and feeling like it was rushed (or hastily rewritten at some point prior to filming), Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children entertains in fits and starts; and yet it’s hugely enjoyable when Goldman and Burton’s sensibilities meet in the middle, and there’s more than enough on display to justify the movie’s being seen by as many people as possible, so perhaps this is one adaptation where advance knowledge of the plot isn’t necessary… or desirable.

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?

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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.