Not suitable under 13, parental guidance to 14 (violence, disturbing themes and scenes)
This topic contains:
Children under 13 | Not recommended because of violence and disturbing themes and scenes. |
Children aged 13–14 | Parental guidance recommended due to violence and disturbing themes and scenes. |
Children aged 15 and over | Ok for this age group. |
This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.
Name of movie: | Ender's Game |
Classification: | M |
Consumer advice lines: | Science fiction themes and violence |
Length: | 114 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is a highly intelligent 22nd Century child. Along with many other gifted children, he is being trained by an International Military Force for future inter-galactic battles. 70 years earlier the Earth had almost been wiped out and millions of people died after an invasion by the Formics, an insect like alien race. Colonel Hyram Graff (Harrison Ford) singles out Ender as a possible saviour of the human race and Ender is sent to a battle school in space for further training.
Ender proves himself to have unique skills of leadership and abilities to both command respect and to question authority that make him quickly advance to commander school. There he is put into the Salamander team led by the rather nasty Bonzo (Moises Arias) who takes an immediate dislike to Ender.
Ender proves himself to be smarter than Bonzo and moves on to take command of the entire fleet. However, at the same time Ender grows increasingly uncomfortable about his role and the preparations for war. During the final battle, Ender wants to know if he can be as successful at peace as he is at war.
Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.
The ethics of war; child soldiers
Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.
Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.
There is a lot of violence in this movie including:
Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes of transformation in this movie that would disturb children under the age of five, including:
Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:
Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.
Children in this age group may also be scared by some of the above-mentioned scenes.
Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.
Younger children in this age group may also be scared by some of the above-mentioned scenes.
None noted.
None noted.
There is some use of substances in this movie, including:
There is some coarse language in this movie, including “balls” and “crap” and some name calling such as:
Ender’s Game is a science fiction thriller which raises a number of ethical questions, particularly about war and the right to attack an aggressor or defend oneself. The computer generated images are very effective and the film will appeal to both teens and adults. Both the themes and some fairly intense violent and scary scenes make the film unsuitable for under 13s, with parental guidance strongly recommended for 13 and 14-year-olds.
The main messages from this movie are that diplomacy should always be the preferred option to war and that to defeat your enemy you must first understand them.
Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:
Parents may wish to discuss the issues raised by the film, including:
Tip: Leave out the first A, An or The
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Content is age appropriate for children this age
Some content may not be appropriate for children this age. Parental guidance recommended
Content is not age appropriate for children this age
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