Divergent

Title: Divergent

Directed by: Neil Burger

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet

Description via IMDb: In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she's Divergent and won't fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late.

My rating: 2.5/5

The movie “Divergent” is based on the book by the same name. In it a post-apocolyptic society has divided itself into “Factions.” Based on inherent personality traits and beliefs Factions provide clear cut guides as to who everyone is, how everyone should act, and what roles everyone plays in society at large. On the face, it’s a pretty cool system and it seems to be working for our characters.

The movie revolves around a young girl, Tris, who has to choose a faction to belong to. She makes a bold choice and goes with one she wasn’t born into, which, gauging by the gasps of her audience at the Choosing Ceremony, is not common. Her new Faction: Dauntless, the thrill-seekers, the warriors, and the guardians of the wall surrounding their city.

The whole movie follows her through her 10 weeks of initiation. We see her train, make friends, deal with a power-trippy leader who is reckless and has zero compassion, and finally, we see her fall for the broody hot guy who’s training them. Seriously, that whole thing takes up most of the movie. It’s not until the last 30 minutes or so that anything remotely interesting plot-wise happens (and even then it seems like an afterthought, just shoved in to get the action moving).

But, what I think the worst part is, even the meat of the movie seems superficial. It just wasn’t able to capture how difficult her training was as compared to the book. How she struggled emotionally and physically. She got the crap beat out of her, bones broken, and all we get in the movie is that she was unconscious for a day (MINUS EVEN BRUISING FROM SAID BEATING!!!).

It also wasn’t able to demonstrate how different Tris really was from the other characters. The movie is called “Divergent” because that’s what she is. The way her brain works diverges from the “norm”. Everyone is able to fit into those neat little categories of the Factions because the way they think is so limited. Tris is able to see through eyes capable of thinking in more than one way. For example, Dauntless people will choose weapons and find ways to physically take control of a scenario. This is in contrast to the Erudite who will only use logic, reasoning, and science. Abnegation are literally only able to think in terms of selflessness, while Candor can only see things in black and white, lies vs. truth. Seriously, Candor can’t even fathom that little white lies are ok sometimes. So, in the book, Tris really is a unique character and her interaction with the rest is kind of fascinating. And all of that subtlety and intricacy is lost to a basic interpretation of what can be seen from the surface.

This also seems to apply to the characters we see on the screen. The actors did fine with what they were given.

Shailene seemed to lack an internal strength, resolve, and shrewdness that Book Tris had, although she played well on screen.

Jai Courtney, who played power-trippy Eric, was totally believable, if somewhat one-dimensional.

Kate Winslet played the Big Bad as Erudite leader Jeanine. She did well, although that characters development won’t really happen until the second book. We’ll see how the character develops (if at all) in the second installment.

Theo James played the hottie trainer and love interest of Tris. He’s cute but the character was meh. Actually, James showed little depth, of which this character has tons. I mean, we literally get to see this guys greatest fears played out and how he handles them, and James is stony faced throughout. I wonder if he even read the book? Hopefully he does so before filming begins on the subsequent movies.

I think it’s also interesting to note that director Neil Burger won’t be returning to helm “Insurgent.” Hopefully the new director will allow the actors to take a bigger bite out of their characters and show some depth and development.

Overall, the movie was disappointing. It wasn’t a grand sweeping epic. It wasn’t a rousing rebel cry in the night. It was quite vanilla where it could have been a limencello. The movie glossed over the best points of the book, dragged for ages, and wasn’t able to convey the urgency of the final action (which I’ve intentionally not discussed, because SPOILERS!). It was a solid meh from me, so it only gets 2.5 out of 5 stars.