“When I understand my enemy well enough to defeat him, in that moment, I also love him.” That thought-provoking quote kicks off Ender’s Game , a big-budget adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s hugely popular 1985 science-fiction novel that stars Asa Butterfield, Ben Kinsgley and Viola Davis and also features Harrison’s Ford’s return to space after a 30-year hiatus.

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The film takes place 50 years after earth suffered a devastating attack from the ‘Formics’ – insect-like aliens who seem hell-bent on either conquering or destroying the planet. Their efforts failed, but millions of humans died during the invasion, and the planet has been awaiting the Formics’ return ever since.The powers that be decide that children are our best chance of survival, training them to take charge of the planet’s International Fleet. It's a great conceit, though the reason for this isn’t explained particularly well, with claims made that kids "don't think the way we think," operate at a higher speed, and can handle technology and deal with tremendous amounts of information without getting burnt out.But it does make for an intriguing set-up, with the film revolving around ‘Battle School’, a huge space station that orbits the planet and at which youngsters are raised on war games and taught the laws of engagement to prepare for the conflict. More specifically, the film follows the journey of one very special child – Ender Wiggin – who may or may not be humanity’s saviour.A remarkable 12-year-old, Ender possesses vast intellect and great emotional maturity. He’s also a very troubled boy however, bullied because he’s a third child at a time when families are limited to two offspring, and wracked with guilt because he’s being fast-tracked on a training programme that both his brother and sister flunked out of. Ender can be both selfless and selfish, and while initially he doesn’t believe in violence, he quickly develops a disturbing taste for it. So will these contradictions help save earth should Ender graduate, or will they have devastating consequences for the planet?The school’s commander – Colonel Hyrum Graff – immediately sees the boy’s potential, and many of the film’s most interesting scenes concern conversations between Graff and Major Gwen Anderson, the teacher responsible for the psychological well-being of the cadets, or ‘Launchies.’Graff is a puppet-master, ruthlessly manipulating Ender. He befriends the boy then abandons him. Praises Ender, then isolates and turns the other Launchies against him. Graff doesn’t see Ender as a child, but rather as "a thoroughbred" or more precisely as a pawn in a game for the future of humanity. “Let’s see how he handles rejection,” he bellows on one occasion. “I don’t care how he’s feeling. I want him to toughen up” on another.Anderson meanwhile, is there to question these at times barbaric methods, wondering what the emotional and psychosomatic fall-out will be from treating the children like toy soldiers. Can the ends ever justify the means? Is the way we win a war as important as winning the war itself?These questions are at the centre of the story, and make for some spellbinding scenes between Harrison Ford and Viola Davis, who play the Colonel and Major in question, Ford gruff as Graff but also hinting at the man’s humanity, and Davis compassion personified; the film’s beating heart.But it isn’t all psychology and philosophy, with Ender’s Game also a high-tech action film thanks to the Battle School’s Battle Room. A giant glass sphere, war simulations are played out in its zero-gravity environment, with the children divided up into teams to wage war against each other.Through these games Ender and his fellow cadets learn tactics and strategy, and where this action was somewhat confusing in the book, director Gavin Hood brilliantly realises these sequences onscreen, the games concise and clear, the camera floating over, under and around the children as they do battle.Hood also wrote the script, and while he nailed the war-games, elsewhere he’s made some changes that may annoy fans of the book. The time-frame over which the story is staged has been reduced from six years to one, so we don’t meet Ender as a six-year-old but rather at 12, never really getting a sense of the impact that spending half of his life at Battle School has on the youngster.He’s also downgraded the involvement of his siblings Valentine and Peter, who play a much more important role in the book, Valentine kind and considerate, Peter a violent brute with potentially psychopathic tendencies. Their influence on Ender, and his fear that he might one day follow in the footsteps of the latter rather than the former, drives much of the narrative in the book, but is unfortunately somewhat lost on-screen.The ‘Fairyland’ game which the teachers use to get inside Ender's head also fails to work on film, the concept needing more explanation, and the visual effects used to bring it to life looking like they’ve come from The Lawnmower Man rather than a 2013 blockbuster.Hood fares better with the film’s finale however – the details of which we won’t go into here, but which looks spectacular onscreen, and packs a real emotional punch when its consequences are considered.And in building to this poignant finale, he’s aided enormously by the performance of his lead actor. Asa Butterfield has delivered fine performances in the likes of Hugo and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but here he excels, capturing Ender’s spirit, strength, bravery and vulnerability.The character’s empathy allows him to understand, anticipate, and even love his enemy, and Butterfield captures this emotional intelligence, leaving you in no doubt that Ender is the kind of boy on whose shoulders humanity’s survival could one day be placed. And on top of that, he effortlessly goes toe-to-toe with Ford and Davis, and at times ends said scenes victorious.The acting elsewhere in the movie leaves a little to be desired however. Heilee Steinfield makes little impression as sharp-shooting cadet Petra, and Moises Arias is horribly miss-cast as bully Bonzo. Jimmy Pinchak delivers a one-dimensional performance as Peter, playing up the violence but failing to capture the character’s pain, while Ben Kingsley is unconvincing as former war hero Mazer Rackham, hamming it up when a little understatement might have gone a long way.All of which makes for something of a mixed bag of a movie, one that’s gripping when Ender is interacting with his senior officers, but laughable when with his fellow cadets. And one that is fascinating when bouncing around the Battle Room, but disappointing while on earth.