‘Divergent’ Movie Review: Great action, satisfying beginning for trilogy
Here comes another movie based off of a best-selling novel – Divergent.
I always love seeing my favorite story come to life on the big screens. Usually, I worry that the movie won’t do the book justice. Having loved this dystopian novel, I of course couldn’t wait to see this movie and judge it for myself.
The story is set in a futuristic dystopian where the society is divided into five factions. Each faction represents a different virtue. The five different factions are Erudite the intelligent, Candor the honest, Amity the peaceful, Dauntless the brave, and Abnegation the selfless. At a certain age, all teenagers have to decide where they belong best. They can choose to stay in their current faction that they have grown up in, or transfer to a new faction and leave their friends and family behind.
The main character Tris (Shailene Woodley) has to decide where she fits in best. Everyone around her expects her to stay in Abnegation with her family. But deep down, she knows that she doesn’t fit in there.
Before the teens decide, they take a test that evaluates their personality and their result guides them in their decision. During Tris’ exam, she discovers that she is divergent. That means that she doesn’t fit into one category. This automatically makes her a threat to the system because it makes her stronger. The faction leaders can’t control someone who is brave, intelligent and selfless.
At the choosing ceremony, she decides to leave her family behind and join Dauntless the brave. She is then immediately thrown into a completely different atmosphere. Before joining dauntless, she hadn’t even seen a hamburger before. Most of the other initiates think she is in way over her head and that she’ll end up factionless. (Those who don’t belong anywhere and live like the homeless.)
Instead of letting the fear overwhelm her, it wakes her up. She starts to train and get better rankings throughout her initiation. With the help of her mentor (Theo James), she continues to hide her divergence. It isn’t until later on in the movie that she finds out exactly who she is a threat to. And those people are willingly to kill her and others like her to keep everything in line and under their control.
The supporting figures that had identifiable personalities in the book don’t get that much character development. But the action scenes are what make the movie great. Especially the climatic ending scene with the evil Erudite leader (Kate Winslet).
Fans of the series will be satisfied with the book-adaptation. Others who haven’t read the books will have to pay attention to fully understand different parts that aren’t explained very well.
Overall, I think this is a decent movie and worth the watch. I am interested to see how the impending sequel will play out.
Divergent receives 3 1/2 stars out of 5 stars.
