Alrighty then. Divergent. Let’s talk about it. I went and saw it last Friday, and I was not a huge fan. I did not read the book, so I realize my review might be a little off. As a movie, I did not like it at all. The idea was great, it reminded me a little bit of the Hunger Games, but the execution, was…not good.
Let’s start off with the basic plot. We have a post-war civilization in which everyone is divided into factions. These factions are: Dauntless, Abnegation, Eriudite, Amity and Candor. We have our main character, Tris, who is going to take a test to find out what faction she should be a part of. The test doesn’t end up working on her, and her test administrator sends her home. At the choosing ceremony the next day, she chooses the “Dauntless” faction, who are the guardians of the city where they all live. This whole first part is actually pretty cool, we meet all the factions and get to see their personalities and such.
After the choosing ceremony, we see Tris getting off the train (in kind of a badass way) to the Dauntless headquarters. They jump off the train (again, all very badass), and jump into the headquarters. That was actually pretty cool. I would totally jump off a moving train and down into a potentially bottomless pit if I had the courage to do so. It’s what goes on after this first part that bugged me. As Tris lands in the headquarters, a member of Dauntless helps her out of the safety net. She looks at him like “Whoa, hot guy.” At this first meeting, the audience can immediately tell that he is going to be a love interest for her, which is really irritating. I like there to be surprise in a movie. I like it when you don’t know who the love interest is going to be. Let’s take Harry Potter, for example. Throughout the first few books, you assume that Harry is going to end up with Hermione, and Ron might end up with someone like Luna. It’s that awesome twist of fate that puts Hermione with Ron and Harry with Ginny. We didn’t see that in this movie. It was all very obvious, and that annoyed me. Plus, Theo James (the guy who plays the love interest) is really not that attractive, at least not to me.
On with the story. We see Tris and her fellow Dauntless hopefuls put through some pretty intense training. (We also get to see that Miles Teller is in the movie! Yay!) During the physical training, we see Tris staring lovingly at that guy who helped her out of the safety net. See? I can’t even remember his name I disliked his character so much! I really don’t see how this love interest works. She thinks he’s hot, yeah, but it would have been cool if he turned out to be a total asshole, like Hans did in “Frozen.”
During the mental training, we see their attraction grow. Love Interest Man helps Tris with her training because, since the test didn’t work on her, she’s doing scarily well, and she doesn’t want the government people (Abnegation) finding out that the test didn’t work, because then she might be killed. They then proceed to make out. Lovely. Moving on. After that, we see that Eriudite, who is trying to overthrow Abnegation, is going to drug all the Dauntless to help with the overthrow. After they get out of the headquarters, they talk some, and they try and escape with the help of Tris’s mother. Love Interest gets captured, and Tris goes to save him and stop Eriudite. In the end, we see Tris and her Love Interest Man riding off in the train, being all happy because they don’t have to worry about the test not working on them (those are called “Divergent”). I don’t get it. Why not stay in Dauntless? Isn’t Dauntless what you wanted since you were a kid, Tris? Seriously. I don’t get the ending. It’s like, it’s cool you’re Divergent, but why not stay in Dauntless? You get to be all badass and stuff. Overall, I give this movie 1.5 stars out of a possible 5.