The controversy surrounding the new film Ender’s Game finally comes to a head today as it opens in theaters nationwide. It’s based on what many consider an un-filmable science-fiction novel by outspoken and divisive author Orson Scott Card. The good news is the material does translate to the screen. The bad news is it only translates by taking all the interesting parts out and watering down the rest of the material.

It’s usually a fool’s errand when it comes to adapting any work that’s as beloved and dense as Ender’s Game and translating it to another medium – especially film. Your imagination runs wild when you’re reading a novel and nobody’s interpretation on film can ever top what’s in your head. Some adaptations have come close but there’s a reason the phrase, “the movie is never as good as the book” is so popular in our culture.

Judging from the material that makes up the film version of Ender’s Game, it’s not bad at all. There are just obvious hints of a bigger story lurking in the background and that can be very distracting.

Asa Butterfield (Hugo) stars as Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, a young prodigy raised in a future society anticipating an alien attack. The aliens have attacked Earth before and as the film explains in its opening minutes, our best resource is to harvest young minds to engineer the perfect attack against our enemy when they eventually return. This leads up to a military-style boot camp where only the toughest and bravest minds survive. Mentored by older and experienced fighters, young Ender struggles to find his place in this academy and eventually starts to find a natural rhythm.

The elders in this futuristic world are mostly reduced to three veteran actors (Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis), another of the film’s shortcomings. This becomes an ongoing problem because the bulk of the movie is focused on Ender and the younger actors surrounding him. When we do get voices of authority it results in cliché dialogue and a lot of grunting (mostly from Harrison Ford).

Director Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) also wrote the screenplay for Ender’s Game so he obviously does what he can with limited resources. Condensing large novels into a two hour movie is never an easy task but considering the many attempts to bring this material to the screen over the years, this is probably the best adaptation we’re going to get under the circumstances.

Grade: C+

Rated: PG-13 (for some violence, sci-fi action and thematic material)

Ender’s Game opens in theaters on November 1, 2013.