Review of Divergent (2014) by Ching T — 28 Dec 2014

When I first saw this on the silver screen, a few months after Hunger Games, I left underwhelmed. Had I not seen Hunger Games, I may have reacted differently.

Now almost a year later, I've rewatched this over by streaming on Netflix and actually love it. The only similarity with HG is that it's the same genre featuring teens pitted against the ruling dictator-esque ruler in a futuristic dystopian American city. Whereas HG was nothing but constant action leaving me a bit confused as to the character's motivations and back stories, Divergent did a really good job of building up the story slowly so that it became a rather voyeuristic experience for the viewer to better understand the world, culture and the adolescent perspective of Tris.

The trailers were more promising of a better complex psychological political dystopian thriller than the movie ending itself, and books, turned out to be. Too bad, this plot had a real potential to pose a few wild and stunning existential and philosophical questions that would have dominated water cooler conversations for at least a week. After reading the books, I lay blame on the author and not the screen writers who I applaud for the few but critical deviations they made from the original book. Shailene Woodley is a gem. I really enjoyed her protrayal which was a much more relatable teenage heroine in this movie than in the HG movies. JLaw is amazing, but her character is a much more stoic one that's all about action. Apples and oranges here.