Ender's Game

Directed by Gavin Hood.

2013. Rated PG-13, 114 minutes.

Cast:

Asa Butterfield

Harrison Ford

Viola Davis

Abigail Breslin

Moises Arias

Ben Kingsley

Hailee Steinfeld

Aramis Knight

Fifty years ago there was an alien invasion that wiped out much of humanity. Eventually, us earthlings were able to defeat the extra terrestrial invaders when a brave soul named Mazer Rackham (Kingsley) rammed his ship into the bad guys' mother ship and all of their smaller ships started falling out of the sky. Apparently, he saw Independence Day. Anyhoo, his sacrifice has made him a legend and we've been preparing for another attack ever since. Of course, all of our fighting vessels have lots of buttons and big screen displays and kids are allegedly more adept at using those things than adults, so it's decided that we only train child prodigies to be our future fighters. The program is run by Colonel Graff (Ford). He goes all Morpheus and thinks he has found "the one" in the form of Ender Wiggin (Butterfield). Trying to get him ready for the next invasion ensues.

Right away, the movie puts me in position to actually contemplate its premise. I like it, but at the same time it sounds like complete rubbish. To begin with, people who are really adept at video games are simply people who love video games, regardless of age. Kids tend to play them a lot more often due to having more time, less responsibility, yada yada, which is why they're generally better. Where I'm going is I don't think it would be wise at all to utilize children for such a program because of the real life ramifications of what you're asking them to accomplish. Do you really want to place your fate in the hands of button happy children? Since that's what the movie is going with, that's what I'm going with. The sooner you let go of the questions, the sooner you can get into the movie.

To help us get into it, it presents us with the dire reality that the powers that be aren't just preparing for a possible attack, they're fairly certain one is coming. Next, they run our hero through a series of training exercises. These are mostly interesting, particularly the floating war games thingy. On top of this our hero clashes with whoever his leader is every step of the way, so there's lots of arguing about everything. Lots of this arguing is done by Col. Graff and his right hand man woman Major Anderson (Davis). Her only function throughout the film is to say the exact opposite of whatever Graff says. Their back and forths are amusing, even if Ford seems to be phoning it in. Davis is her usual intense self. I swear that woman could make twiddling your thumbs sound like an urgent matter that must be addressed. Our star, Asa Butterfield, is rather meh, but helped greatly by appearing normal next to the scenery chewing Moises Arias (of Hannah Montana fame) as one of those leaders he clashes with. Ben Kingsley shows up later to chew whatever scenery was left over. Butterfield gets a nice emotional centering from Abigail Breslin as the girl who takes a shine to him and helps him out from time to time. This reminds me, as always, there is a budding romance shoe-horned in, though it never really goes anywhere.

Ahhh...never going anywhere. That's the movie's problem. I understand that the whole thing is meant to set up a sequel. However, that doesn't mean that it should completely anti-climactic. I hope I'm not spoiling it, but the way the movie plays out it's training, argue, training, argue, training, stupid twist, The End. It quite literally pulls the rug out from beneath your feet. My first reaction to what happened was "What? That's it?" Usually, when that happens I put my brain to work trying to dig a little deeper. Maybe I missed something. Perhaps something profound is lurking just beneath the surface that I didn't initially grasp. No, not really. It just kind of says "We were pulling your leg this whole time," and drops the mic like it just finished rocking the house. My house wasn't rocked.

Hugo

Directed by Martin Scorsese.

2011. Rated PG, 128 minutes.
Cast:
Asa Butterfield
Ben Kingsley
Chloë Grace Moretz
Sacha Baron Cohen
Jude Law

Ray Winstone
Helen McCrory
Richard Griffiths
Frances de la Tour
Christopher Lee

Hugo (Butterfield) is a tween-aged boy who lives alone inside the giant clock at the train station. Sort of. He’s supposed to be living there with his uncle Claude (Winstone) who is responsible for keeping the clock wound. However, Claude is a drunk and hasn’t been seen in quite some time. Hugo’s dad was already a widower when he died leaving his son in the care of his not-so-responsible brother. So Hugo keeps the clock running all by himself. He also works feverishly to fix the automaton his father left him, a robot that supposedly writes. Hugo has never seen it work.

Much of our hero’s day is spent scavenging food and parts from the shops in the station while avoiding station cop Inspector Gustave (Cohen). His favorite target is the toy store owned by crotchety old Papa Georges (Kingsley). When Georges catches Hugo, he makes the lad work for him to pay for all the stuff he’s stolen. He also confiscates the kid’s notebook which looks like a manual for the automaton. In an effort to get his notebook back, Hugo recruits Isabelle (Moretz) who lives with Papa Georges and his wife because her own parents have passed away. The two embark on a book retrieving adventure.

Eventually, we find out Hugo isn’t at all about the notebook , the writing robot or even the title character. Like Super 8, which I’ve recently watched, Hugo is actually a movie about movies. In this case, it focuses on the earliest days of filmmaking and how magical moving pictures must have been to people who had never heard of such a thing. By extension, it’s also about when we in the contemporary audience first fell in love with movies ourselves. After all, even the most cynical of us has been awed by a film and transported wholly into its world at some point in our lives. Finally, it makes an eloquent point about the need to step up the effort to preserve old films. If the viewer misses all that stuff about movies and merely focuses on the surface of Hugo, they’ll still get an enjoyable film.

Hugo is also about the visuals. That’s not quite right, the visuals are there to enhance the feeling that watching a movie is akin to witnessing magic. They are an important part of the film. Each shot is beautifully framed and the fluid movement of the camera has the effect of sweeping us away into this world. Unfortunately, I’m ill-qualified to comment any further. My lack of technical expertise aside, it’s a movie designed to be a 3D experience that I watched in 2D on a not-so-wide screen. Though I’m not a huge fan of the medium I would like to see this as it is meant to be seen.

Even without the funny glasses, I still had a good time watching Hugo. The story is thoroughly sweet and touching. Admittedly, that’s not what I’m normally looking for out of my Scorcese, but he makes it engaging. Interestingly enough, my children didn’t enjoy it as much despite the two youthful protagonists. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do need to understand a bit about the history of movies. After all, it is an adventure that leads not to a treasure of gold or something they deem tangible, but to an archive of silent films (I’m not spoiling anything). Maybe when I’m old and they’re making one of their obligatory visits I’ll force them to watch it with me just to see if they get it.

MY SCORE: 8/10