Reviews

I hesitated to watch this movie for a long time - reason being my endless love for the adapted book, which is my absolute favorite. It is needed to be said in the review, because even with all the effort it is impossible for me to review the movie without influence of the book.

Movie did actually better job than I expected. I liked the cast of the main characters, Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield. Both did very good job. A big positive surprise for me was the visual aspect of the movie, I liked it actually so much, it is the main reason, why I keep my rating for the movie so high despite the negatives.

The biggest problem of the Ender's Game adaptation is the race against the time. The movie tries to squeeze huge amount of information in a short time and it just does not work. I cannot imagine, how I would feel without having any background information from the book. Even if we can discuss whether the "Earth" sideline with Ender's siblings has to or doesn't have to be in the movie (it does not), there is the main storyline describing Ender's time spend in Battle school and it is handled so shallowly and quickly, it hurts. This story just needs more space. Without it there is almost no character development. No emotions towards side characters, like Bean or Petra or all the others, barely recognizable for the viewer. Even the great ending is ripped of emotions partially because of it. I felt all the aspects of the movie are more handled as trailers to that aspect than actually diving into it. And it is a pity.

It was still a nice experience, seeing the universe come to life.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down!

The idyllic countryside of France turns into nightmare as it becomes occupied by German army during the World War 2. Crowds of refugees flee the capital of Paris and find a shelter in small town named Bussy, where this romantic drama takes place. German army resides there too, soldiers and officers are divided into the households. And bonds are being created between enemies, f.e. when a young married French woman finds … something like a soul-mate in German officer living in her villa. Sadly, no dramatic war background can save a movie with shallow and bad screenplay. And it was for me, what happened in this movie. I knew nothing about it before seeing it and I was really surprised, when I found out it is based on the book. Whole time while watching I was thinking... yes, someone had a nice idea about a movie. War movie, from the point of view of rich civilian, not being exactly in the middle of the war. Fear of bombarding was believable and whole situation kind of interesting. But then it started to swim out – lack of any plan. Like someone did not know how to fill the main plot with actual dialogs. Everything felt just shallow and that applied to the majority of the motives, even if they had potential, they were somehow put without any depth, being it motive of class differences (rich/poor) or loneliness in the middle of war time. Vast majority of the characters were just unbelievable, starting with the main male protagonist of German lieutenant. Only exception for me was the „evil" mother-in-law (Kristin Scott Thomas).