MOVIE REVIEW: Divergent

What is it with post-apocalyptic fantasy being the “it” thing these days? Hunger Games, Divergent, The Host…holy moly. Whatever happened to the classics? 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Flies anyone? You don’t see Hollywood making those movies and they came first!

I suppose that’s neither here nor there.

Essentially, Divergent is another one of those so-super-popular-it’s-gotta-be-a-movie-now phenomena. Fandango’s synopsis says, “In a world where the population is divided into factions by personality types, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) is classified as Divergent. When she uncovers a conspiracy to eliminate all Divergents, she teams with the mysterious Four (Theo James) to find out what makes the powers-that-be so frightened of them.”

Just for kicks, let’s look at what Amazon’s book synopsis says, “Beatrice Prior's society is divided into five factions—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself. But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she's determined to keep hidden, because in this world, what makes you different makes you dangerous.”

I don’t know about you, but the book sounds better. Ah, the imagination-inept-visually-stimulated limitations of society.

I am going to struggle with comparing this to the book because I really enjoyed the book, so please, bear with me.

Standing by itself, Divergent was good: especially if you have never read the book. From a pretend world where I was not intrinsically frustrated with minor details that were super important to main plotlines in the book, I enjoyed the movie. I even really enjoyed some of the parts that they adapted specifically for the movie as they would have been less-than-entertaining if they had acted them out as written in the book (there’s a fight scene towards the end that is quite exciting, but definitely never happened in the book).

Shailene Woodley, who plays the main character, delivered a performance that was both more exciting and enthusiastic than anything Kristen Stewart (Twilight) ever performed but less talented than Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games).  I peg those two other actresses as comparison as they are all in movies based on teen-fiction-of-a-fantasy-genre-made-into-movies. In short, Woodley was mildly entertaining though not particularly memorable.

The storyline had enough entertainment to be fun and easy to follow, as it left out a lot of the more complicated elements of the book that will frustrate fans everywhere, but allows the movie to be more accessible to those who are not particularly interested in reading the trilogy. The writers did an excellent job of adapting the book into a format that will reach a broader audience than just the book. My biggest complaint in the adaptation is that it leaves out the greater questions that the book haphazardly poses about society that are reflected in books of similar tracks. Entertainment value aside, the questioning of current society is one of the big draws for that type of story.

Oh well.

It was a fun movie to see in theaters, especially if you’re familiar with the stories and can separate yourself from the misses in the storyline. Some of the daredevil moves executed by Woodley and her supporting actors definitely read better on the big screen, though not a lot would be lost in a smaller setting.

It’s a fun view overall, but not the end of the world if it simply makes it to your Netflix list.