Ender's Game

Teachers should watch proudly homophobic Orson Scott Card's sci-fi story: The 1985 book remains the rage in middle and high schools because it's basically a defense for lives spent playing violent video games. But Gavin Hood's film version of "Ender's Game" is a flat and sleepy adaptation. The combo pack special features include "Ender's World: The Making of" and "Inside the Mind Game," plus audio commentary, deleted and extended scenes.

Genetically-engineered Andrew Ender Wiggin (beanpole Asa Butterfield) and his fellow teen geeks, including Hailee Steinfeld's Petra Arkanian, are groomed to use their gaming skills to defeat a real enemy, the arthropod, "Alien"-esque Formics who had previously attacked Earth (the book refers to them as "Buggers" to further the Mormon author's gay-bashing agenda). Ender's sister Valentine (Abigail Breslin) was too compassionate for the assignment, and his brother Peter (Jimmy "Jax" Pinchak), too violent, but humorless Ender is just right, saying, "When I understand my enemy well enough to defeat him, then, in that moment, I also love him."

Under the insipid instruction of gruff International Military Colonel Graff (one-note Harrison Ford) and the all-too-brief psychological support from Major Gwen Anderson (vibrant, three-dimensional Viola Davis), the kids play their version of space Quidditch/laser tag in the zero-gravity Battle Room as they run training programs, practice killing the invaders with drones, and migrate closer to the alien's turf.

Even Ben Kingsley as Maori super warrior Mazer Rackham, homages to "2001: A Space Odyssey," and a smattering of funny lines like, "This is rocket science," can't help the movie find its rhythm or place in the young adult pantheon. The bigoted source material and its use of ancient technology like emails don't weather space travel very well.

"Ender's Game"
Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack
$19.99
http://www.endersgamemovie.com/