Attack of alien ants

Film review
Ender’s Game(12a)
Running time 114 minutes
Rating: **
Portraying your enemy as a faceless, inhuman being, radically different from yourself and possessing only aggressive thoughts towards you, is a useful ploy in any war and in an interplanetary conflict virtually inevitable.
So, while in Starship Troopers, the 1997 sci-fi was based around big bugs with pointy, stabbing fingers, in Ender’s Game, the 2013 sci-fi is focused on big bugs that resemble ants.
Ender’s Game, directed by Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) tells the story of one Ender Wiggin (not Bradley), who for some obscure reason is thought to be the only 12-year-old on Earth possessing sufficient skill to defeat the forthcoming alien invasion of antlike beings.
Fifty years previously the ants were defeated by hero Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), not by pouring hot water down their holes but by flying his fighter jet Independence Day-style into an alien mothership.
Since then, Earth has been preparing for a re-match, with military leader Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) training youngsters to be the best hope of defeating them again.
Ender, played by Asa Butterfield, is a hardball kind of a kid and looks set to be The One, but suddenly develops a conscience, which, if you are being trained towards extermination, poses problems.
However, this doesn’t stop ol’ Graff, who helps Ender see the bigger picture and get on with the killing.
As portrayed the tale, apparently based on a book written by a Mormon mission to South America, is a silly one, but the film does have its good points. The CGI representations of alien worlds are wonderful, and the acting of Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) is noteworthy.
There may be other filmgoers like me, however, who cannot help thinking that this is just another “we had better get an end-of-the-world movie in the can before people forget about the Mayan 2012 prediction”, with Ford present to give it added gravitas.
Sadly, in Ender’s Game, Harrison creates a character that grumps around a great deal, while Ben Kingsley, playing a war hero thought to be dead, hides behind a Maori face tattoo uttering gnomic thoughts.
Some may enjoy Ender’s Game, but it’s not one I’d long to see again.