Talk about a missed opportunity. The film adaptation of “Ender’s Game” could have been an interesting commentary on child soldiers and the dehumanization of war. Instead, it has to settle for being an entertaining popcorn sci-fi movie that doesn’t explore its themes fully.

Based on a 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game” takes place several decades after humanity narrowly avoided annihilation by a race of giant space bugs. Since then, Earth’s governments have been training children to be battle commanders in anticipation of a second conflict. The film follows Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a child prodigy who Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) believes can be the one to finally win the war.

The film is clearly supposed to be the launching point for a series, as the novel has several sequels. As such, it’s front-loaded with exposition and world building, while the real action is relegated to the final third of the film. This can get a little boring at times, but thankfully, the world they are building and the story they are telling has enough interesting elements to stay entertaining throughout.

Those plot elements and themes end up being the best and worst part of “Ender’s Game.” Obviously, putting children in battle school and training them to commit acts of war is extremely unethical. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t put enough effort into exploring this theme.

There is just one scene where it’s brought up at all, and the issue is dropped almost as quickly as it was raised. The filmmakers’ decision to favor sci-fi action over thoughtful, philosophical debate might make it more crowd-pleasing, but it doesn’t make it a better movie.

Still, what’s presented to the audience is entertaining enough. The film has a decent look to it, with the climactic battle at the end looking especially cool. The acting and dialogue aren’t incredible, but they aren’t offensive either, at least by the standards of Hollywood cinema.

It’s just disappointing that “Ender’s Game” isn’t as thought provoking as it could be. There’s a good nucleus present, and the ending sets up future adventures in this world nicely. Unfortunately, due to the direction the filmmakers took, it entertains but doesn’t satisfactorily address the complex philosophical issues at hand. Maybe the next one will be better.