I loved this movie—-nah, just kidding. It’s mildly diverting (get it? hyuk yuk yuk) but ultimately generic. It’s a merely okay film that will be inevitably stacked up against The Hunger Games and probably found lacking.
What Works: The entire time all I could really think about was how this film compared to The Hunger Games, and I’m probably not alone. The only categories I can say it really “beats” it is in the male lead of Theo James (more of a presence than the Hemsworth guy and Josh Hutchison) and some of the psychological sequences. The hallucinogenic scenes testing the mind of the lead character are some of the most exciting. Also, Shailene Woodley isn’t necessarily inferior to Katniss, just different. Whereas Katniss seems to know exactly who she is and hers is a literal struggle for survival, Woodley’s Tris has as much of an internal battle as an external one. It’s basically Jennifer Lawrence’s steely body vs. Woodley’s more nuanced and confused eyes, and it could be debated which is better…
What Doesn’t: …But which overall movie is better really can’t be. Divergent’s entire premise—-that society is divided into five cliques and you have to pick one, and, like, it’s bad and stuff—-seems shamelessly designed to appeal to teenage girls struggling with the class divisions of high school. It’s stuff they can relate to, but it’s not exactly a believable dystopia. [In the reality of where the world is heading, the spoils will be all divvied up by money, not character traits.] I also wasn’t crazy about the fact that the intelligent ones were also the villains and schemers.
The film’s larger problem is that it’s sleepy and generic and about thirty minutes too long.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Even though the film is inexcusably long it still doesn’t really explore all five of the cliques. We see 90 percent Dauntless, a little bit Abnegation, a little bit Erudite, and I can’t even remember what the other two are. It feels like too narrow a world for such a butt-numbing length of movie. Why not expand the scope? I’m sure it’ll happen in the sequels, but if I can only remember three of the five cliques your movie says are so vital then that’s a problem. Especially since Dauntless might be the most physical (and most likely to appeal to 12 year olds), but probably isn’t the most interesting.
Great review. I haven’t watched the movie but read the book. When I realized there was a movie. But your review works on both. Sadly though Katniss may have ruined dystopian YA novels and movies cause you can’t help but think of the Hunger Games. The movie sets a much higher bar than the book though. BTW the Divergent book is also not so great. Also to clarify, the Hunger Games was the best of the 3 Katniss books so all references stem from that, since the other two were crap! Done ranting I will go away now.