Hollywood has been taking an annoying liking to playing it safe.

Indicative of this is the fact that a handful of box office hits in the past year have been either a retelling of a true story (“Captain Phillips,” “12 Years a Slave”) or another installment in some relatively successful franchise (“The Wolverine,” “Insidious: Chapter 2”).

And then there was “Ender’s Game,” an adaptation of a 30-year-old young adult fiction series that was also supposed to operate on a potentially successful premise.

By telling a story that had defined many a childhood, “Ender’s Game” had a bigger wager at stake: balancing fervent fan excitement and the inevitable rage that would follow should the end result turn out terrible.

This pressure might have been what ultimately relegated it to movie purgatory: an average film that tells — rather than shows — any thematic implications that the book may hold but the movie sorely lacks.

Surely quick-minded and wise-beyond-his-years, protagonist Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) was once every ‘70s kid’s role model; yet movie Wiggin is not that relatable, earnest misfit nerd of modern-day Harry Potter.

Butterfield tries, but Wiggin comes off as detached. He plays guess-and-check more than making the tactful and calculated decisions that qualify him to command the invasion fleet, which humans are commandeering against a hostile alien race called the Formics.

A supporting cast full of trusted industry names (Academy-approved stars Harrison Ford and Hailee Steinfeld also star) can’t help Wiggin defeat mediocrity either — each battle school student and commander comes off just as mechanical, inclined to worship Wiggin only because he occasionally rebels against societal norms in some apparently ground-breaking way.

Additionally, if you aren’t already cringing at the ending that just screams “Sequel,” you’ll probably be rolling your eyes at the unprofessional font the credits are in. Futura? Really?

Or maybe you’ll be trying to recover from Ben Kingsley making the most awkward and useless cameos you’ve ever seen from, well, Ben Kingsley.

Sure, the film’s visual effects are flashy. But beyond that there isn’t much to go on, especially if you’ve read the books.

I suggest you go for “Gravity” if you’re looking for a plot with depth and something worth waiting 30-plus light-years for.

_MOVE gives “Ender’s Game” 3 out of 5 stars._