Review of Divergent (2014) by Grant S — 11 Mar 2016

Inception meets Brave New World, but dumbed down for kids. You could also throw in a few other dystopian/post-apocalyptic movies and books that this is derivative of (not that Inception is such a movie, but the dreams-within-dreams scenes in Divergent reminded me of that).

So, derive a plot from these books/movies, then dumb it down for kids. Hero(ine) is a teen. The good guys are the running, jumping, climbing, fighting types, not the intellectuals, or anyone else. (The perpetual running, jumping and climbing actually made the Dauntless people quite comical, rather than heroic, to me. Their whole shtick just seemed so lame).

Throw in the usual underdog prevails against the odds and ultimately becomes a hero routine, with a bit of romance and an evil conspiracy by the adults/non-action types and you have your common-or-garden teen action movie.

Only positive thing I can say about this is that at least it was better than The Hunger Games (but only marginally so). At least Divergent had some semblance of grit and edginess - Hunger Games is a like a Disney action-movie.