ENDER'S GAME

year: 2013 cast: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld rating: ***

Ender Wiggin… Sounds like what happens if you take too much prostrate medication… But it’s the name of a really cool kid played by talented child-actor Asa Butterfield, who turned in a subdued performance in Martin Scorsese's HUGO but really steals the show here, in fact he owns it entirely: ENDERS GAME is just that… Although the game is the most uninteresting part of this entertaining movie full of neat special effects and a very basic story: the fate of mankind rests on the resilient skills of an underdog youngster, recruited by Harrison Ford’s stoic Colonel Graff, to do battle with a race of antlike aliens resembling the insect foes in STARSHIP TROOPERS… but now we’re skipping ahead to a climax that means very little…

The real stuff occurs in-between the actual training of Ender and a group of rag tag kids… Think THE BAD NEWS BEARS meets SPACE CAMP… This is where our brainy hero stands up to envious bullies while teaching the adults, also including Ben Kingsley’s tattooed mentor and Viola Davis's passive major, a thing or two about strategic concentration... Meanwhile, the preparation-games consist of kids floating around inside an orb built within a giant space ship and… to be honest, those parts are somewhat confusing… It’s still a mystery what they’re doing, exactly (hardcore fans are probably screaming: Read the Book!)…

What really matters is how young Ender takes control of every situation, making even the rushed climax and preachy epilogue pale to his unique ability to outshine everyone (and everything) else on board…

The enders of the ENDERS...