Re-watched this for the first time since seeing it in theaters 10 years ago. The book is one of my childhood favorites, so I'm in the classic position of wanting the film to be good, but also holding it to perhaps unreasonably high standards. In the end, I think this is a respectable attempt to adapt a book that in many ways is ill-suited for adaptation (and perhaps may have worked better as a series). I say ill-suited because relying on children protagonists to pull off weightier story elements and themes is much easier to do on the page than on the screen. Aging up the children was the bare minimum, but even young teenagers are tough to sell in these roles. That said, the acting was actually not a huge problem for me. My biggest complaint was the pacing, as the story felt incredibly rushed and doesn't earn most of its big moments. It's hard to say for sure, but it does feel like it would have worked better if they had 6-10 episodes to work with. As far as positives go, they certainly didn't skimp on the budget. I was surprised to enjoy the film's depiction of the Mind Game and thought that the hyper condensed version actually worked reasonably well. I enjoyed the battle room design and only wish we could have seen more actual battles. While the command school "simulations" were also clearly high budget, I was less of a fan of the design. I just think they overdid it with the bugger swarms, to the point where it is both unrealistic and too visually muddy to even appreciate what is going on. As with everything else, the ending definitely feels rushed, with Ender's internal emotional conflict relying on some forced dialogue and feeling superficial as a result. I thought the decision to have [spoiler]a live bugger with the hive queen egg[/spoiler] was an understandable addition that worked. It's hard for me to judge the movie in a vacuum and I'd definitely be interested to know what uninitiated audiences thought of it. As for me, it was just okay.