Review of The Giver (2014) by Thequietgamer — 23 Jan 2015

If you've seen any movie based off of a YA book you've basically seen this one. It's the same premise as Divergent, the same futuristic society where individuality is non-existant, and the same characters these types of films are known for. The only difference is that it's missing any sort of emotion and according to many a lot of what made the book special.

I can't fault it for feeling like so many other movies of a similar nature. After all the book it's based off of beat so many others like Divergent, Hunger Games, and Maze Runner to the market, so technically they are the rip-offs. However what I can and do fault the movie for is just not being all that interesting.

Outside of Bridges and Streep the characters and performances are flat. The world is uninteresting and failed to evoke any emotion from me. I have to admit watching color come to the black and white world was pretty cool, but that's the only thing I found really exciting or unique.

Unlike the book this movie came out too late and feels like another face in the crowd of YA books turned movies. Even worse is that it's a face with nothing interesting to say about themes that so many moviegoers have already experienced lately. It feels like a cheap cash in.

There is an audience out there who will eat this up. After all these young adult novels are still getting turned into movies (not a bad thing imo). However people should consider that there are better alternatives out there in this growing genre of movies. This one just doesn't have enough style, emotion, or creativity to make it worth a recommendation in my eyes.

My total score for the movie is a 4.5/10.