Why I Didn’t Go See Ender’s Game

I’m worried this is going to come off as trite, but I’m writing it just the same. About a week ago, the film Ender’s Game was released, coming out on top for its debut weekend with $28 million in box office sales. Not too shabby, but not record-breaking, or even terribly impressive. It also wasn’t particularly good, I’ve been told. Decent, but not great. The film has a 62% over at RottenTomatoes. I’m actually a little disappointed that it wasn’t better, since the original work deals with child soldiers, genocide, war, competing political interests, the possibility of human extinction, and even the burden put on one child’s shoulders to save the world. While the novel on which the film is based doesn’t really critically engage with those concepts so much as it presumes their necessity, the film was a genuine opportunity to sink teeth into those ideas in a less congratulatory fashion. It did not.