Review of The Giver (2014) by Jacob — 21 Aug 2014

The Giver is a film that for a good two-thirds showed a lot of promise being a faithful adaptation to the book by presenting scenes faithfully, good casting and good performances, and giving some nice visuals.

Unfortunately, the film stumbles towards the third act. At first the film only occasionally touched on how bad the dystopia was but towards the end it hammers you over the head with it. It turns into a straight up good vs.

evil story and is generic and cliché as possible. Once again Hollywood has taken a story that is unique and wonderful and skinned it into something bland and generic. As much as I love seeing awesome books made into movies I want to see it done well and not try to cater to the masses.

This film based on a book about dystopian society feels very much like it was trying to capitalize on people’s love the Hunger Games, which also deals with rising up. I only hope that people are reading the books these films are based on as opposed to the mainstreamed versions we get now.

Had the film just stuck closer to the story like it was doing pretty well in the first half or so this would have been a really nice film but because it turned into generic good vs. evil and fighting against dystopian society the film lost that special something that made the book so memorable and unique.

Which is why I am forced to “Give” this movie a 5.5. Could’ve been a 7/10 but you just had to cater to the masses. I’m not too excited about Mockingjay: Part I but its starting to look really promising right about now.