The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)

Set during WWII, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a German concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

Heart-wrenching and tragic tale is successful in envisaging the mad hypocrisy of the Nazi ideology, but only skims the horrors of the Holocaust.

Maltin***: "Unique Holocaust fable...Quietly powerful drama personalizes the qualms and contradictions facing German families during the Nazi era."

Ender's Game (2013)

A young boy is recruited by the International Military to lead the fight against the Formics, a genocidal alien race which nearly annihilated the human race in a previous invasion.

An above-average sci-fi drama with an adequate cast hits a sour note with its unabashed militarism which is not softened with a half-baked appeal for entente cordiale at the end of the movie.

Maltin**1/2: "Elaborate rendering of Orson Scott Card's beloved novel...Creditable adaptation of the youthful empowerment novel by writer-director Hood is great looking and extremely well cast. If only it didn't drag toward the climax."