Movie Review: Divergent (2014)
Written by Anthony Sargon
With franchises like “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” proving that there’s a big appetite for female-driven, young adult novel adaptations, be prepared to see a lot (and I mean A LOT) of new, similar projects thrown your way in the coming years. 2014 already got off to a rough start with the atrociously lazy “Vampire Academy“, so here’s hoping we don’t get too many of those. “Divergent” is obviously going to be mostly compared to “The Hunger Games” because of its darker themes, but at the end of the day, the film is just too derivative and unoriginal to appeal to anyone beyond the already devoted fan-base. If you enjoy Veronica Roth’s novels, then there may be enough here to sway you, but if you’re anything like me and hadn’t even heard of the books until they made a movie, then you’re going to walk away disappointed.
The film is set in a futuristic and completely fucked up Chicago. The world has been ravaged by war, and Chicago seems to be the only place left that’s safe enough to harbor life. People are divided into five different factions based on their personalities. There’s Gryffindor, Hufflepuff…I mean Abnegation (the selfless), Erudite (the intelligent), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Candor (the honest). When our protagonist Tris (Shailene Woodley) takes her personality test only to find out that she doesn’t belong to either faction, she’s labeled as a “divergent.” After successfully concealing the truth of her test results, Tris uncovers a plot to kill all divergents, which forces her to come out of hiding and fight for her survival.
The film starts exactly how you’d expect a movie like this to start: with lots and lots of exposition. We listen as Tris explains what each different faction stands for and why we need factions to begin with, blah blah blah. It’s not the least bit interesting and, worst of all, doesn’t make any sense. You don’t buy that any of that could actually happen because the reasoning behind it is absolutely bonkers. The rules within the world are vague and not defined nearly well enough, making it hard for viewers who haven’t read the books to get fully invested.
Director Neil Burger does a passable job at keeping things moving at a relatively brisk pace, and for a movie this long (139 minutes), it wasn’t as boring as it could have been. But again, it’s all so “been there, done that” that you can’t help but feel a bit cheated. It’s such a blatant rip-off of the Hunger Games that I for one had a very hard time appreciating it for what it was. Thankfully, the cast does a lot to make sure that you do somewhat care, even if they’re let down by a dumb plot and a weak script. One thing the film does get right is the romance, which is played out more slowly and subtly than you’d expect.
Shailene Woodley is great as Tris, but her performance alone isn’t enough to save this from total mediocrity. The supporting players also do what they can to elevate the proceedings, and they succeed for the most part. I surprisingly didn’t hate Theo James as Four (seriously, his name is Four), and Miles Teller wasn’t as obnoxious as he normally is, which was a plus. Ashley Judd and Kate Winslet do what they can with very thinly written roles, but ultimately they’re just there to lend the film some added credibility. Jai Courtney (Varro from Spartacus) continues to pick terrible movie roles, and he’s a bit too over-the-top in this as Eric, a psychotic douche bag with daddy issues who enjoys torturing new recruits.
The Verdict:
Most people probably have their minds already made up about “Divergent”, which is actually pretty fair given how unoriginal it is. If you like the books or are a fan of young-adult sci-fi novels in general, then you’ll be pretty satisfied. Everyone else should just diverge (sorry I couldn’t resist) their attention away from this derivative cash-grab.
Numerical Score: 4.5/10
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