Review of Divergent (2014) by Heatherm — 13 May 2015

I didn't have particularly high expectations for this movie, and so I was pleasantly surprised that it's a reasonably good offering. The main actress falls flat often, as she doesn't seem to express very much emotion.

Her instructor Four is much more interesting, as he takes her under his wing and helps her learn to get by in her new faction, showing more knowledge and ability than our main character seems to have.

One thing the film does well is lay out the world of the factions and how they work, giving the audience enough information to follow and get by, but still leaving lots of questions unanswered for the later movies.

Still, it's not a particularly compelling dystopia, and even Kate Winslet's menacing would-be autocrat can't quite save the movie. One of the most interesting performances comes from Miles Teller, whose character provides the perfect love-to-hate rival.

The movie had a reasonably compelling plot arc, but it did leave something to be desired; partly this can be blamed on the necessity of setting things up for the next movie, but it would have been nice if it functioned better as a standalone film to introduce the series.