Divergent

DIVERGENT delivers where so many of the recent young adult novel film adaptations have failed. I saw this film not having read the book and on its own it stands very well.

First off the bad:

1) action sequences feel slow and not natural. You can tell that the actors were not particularly familiar with hand to hand combat, not to say their characters weren't supposed to be but even when they're supposed to know how to fight it feels lackluster. 2) obvious age difference between the two main characters. 3) high school Clich feel for the first half of the film.

Now with that said ^ here is what Worked:

1) length. Often we see film adaptations of novels try and cram everything into 90 or 100 mins but Divergent takes its time. Normally this would be a drawback but the film makes good use of the extra time (the film is 145 mins) to really progress. 2) the performances of the main characters are solid. Nothing amazing but the dynamic between the two main characters works well. - the visual style of the film is very good. The dystopian city of Chicago is very well realized. 3) brings to light moral and societal problems. Suprizingly deep for a young adult film.

OVERALL divergent is a good film. It fails in few places but succeeds in most that count. With the failure of young adult movies such as Percy Jackson, Divergent healthily separates itself from them. I would recommend seeing it. There WILL be a sequel.

Just finished reading the book "Divergent" before the movie opened today. It was a quick easy read. There was obvious inspiration from various other futuristic young adult books I have read, like "The Giver", "Ender's Game" and the "Hunger Games" books. Like the others, the treatment of the story was cold, But its descriptions of the initiation rites were very much more violent.

The setting is the walled city of Chicago after a great war. Their society is divided into five distinct Factions based on personality traits: Dauntless (brave), Amity (friendly), Candor (honest), Erudite (intelligent) and Abnegation (selfless).

At the age of 16, a child takes an examination to help him choose which one will be his faction for the rest of his life. He may follow the suggestion of the exam results, or he may decide on his own. Those who fail to be accepted into a faction becomes factionless, as they become hopelessly poor and destitute for life.

Our heroine Beatrice Prior has been born to the Abnegation faction with their grey clothes and disdain for any form of vanity. However, her examination results are revealed to be inconclusive, so she has to make her own decision. Meanwhile, an uprising is brewing in Erudite against the government run by Abnegation.

I had some problem with the book and the way they try to make the Factions distinct from each other, when it is easy to see that overlapping does happen. These traits simply cannot be mutually exclusive from each other. It is also disturbing the way the author describes the Dauntless. Does being brave mean jumping off running trains, having piercings and tattoos, beating each other up mercilessly, or even killing yourself? This may give immature readers the wrong ideas about courage.

• o - o - o -

The film was a perfectly conceived interpretation of the book. In the first few scenes where they show the color-coded clothes distinguishing each faction was quite clear. How director Neil Burger showed us most of the memorable scenes in the book, like the choosing ceremony, the jumping on and off the trains, the fear landscapes of Tris and Four, and the invasion of Abnegation were all very well done.

There were some parts which were reinterpreted in the film. Most did not really affect the story-telling, like changing how Tris meets her Mom during Visiting Day, or glossing over a particularly violent episode where Peter stabs a fellow initiate in the eye. There was one big change towards the end about how a climactic surprise rescue transpired. I thought the version in the book was so much more better set-up and executed than the less-dramatic altered version we saw on screen.

As I suspected, the tall and beautiful Shailene Woodley is definitely not the small and mousy Tris we imagine while reading the book. However, I thought Shailene gave an excellent portrayal of Tris' character, how she developed from a shy dependent girl to a confident fearless warrior. For people who have not read the books, they will not be aware of any discrepancy at all.

Theo James had very good romantic chemistry with Shailene, so his Four never really felt like a threat to Tris, unlike the initial parts in the book. The director gave James a lot of lingering close-ups for the benefit of the teenage fan girls.

Ansel Elgort, who played Tommy Ross in "Carrie" recently, now plays Tris' brother Caleb. His Caleb is less dynamic than I imagined him in the book. Coincidentally, Elgort has an upcoming movie with Shailene Woodley later this year called "The Fault in Our Stars" where they play boyfriend-girlfriend.

More up and coming actors play other more minor characters. Zoe Kravitz, who was in "After Earth" last year, is not exactly how I envisioned Tris' best friend, but she won me over as the film went along. Miles Teller, who was recently in "That Awkward Moment", plays bad boy Peter, whose role in the film is much diminished compared to the book. Jai Courtney, who played Bruce Willis' son in "A Good Day to Die Hard" last year, brutally plays Tris' tormentor in the training camp.

Among the senior stars, Ashley Judd makes a nice comeback of sorts playing Tris' mother, who had major secrets of her own. Maggie Q played Tris' examiner and tattoo artist Tori with the requisite compassion. Kate Winslet plays the cool and calculating Erudite uprising leader Jeanine with icy perfection.

Overall, I thought this film was a practically perfect interpretation of a book that was less than perfect in itself. So, whatever things the film might show us which we might not like, like the slow pace of action progression, and the questionable motives of the characters, are actually because the book told it that way. Fans of the "Divergent" books will find this film version faithful. While it cannot compare to the high standard set by the Hunger Games film series in terms of cinematic quality and character casting, "Divergent" definitely has its own entertaining appeal going for it. 7/10.

Settling in to this film, I expected to see Hunger Games again. Set in a near-future Chicago, what we see is another take on the dystopian society. The central plot here is that growing up in this walled in world, everyone must fit into one of five classes. But of course, the question here is what if you don't fit into the nicely packaged definition of a single class, then you must be Divergent, or in this movie, a danger to the perfect society. When our main character, Tris (played very well by Shailene Woodley)finds out she is Divergent she must hide this secret and discover the reasons why it is such a secret and why society fears Divergents. I'll leave all of that for you to watch unfold in the various physical and psychological training exercises that are portrayed on screen. In a nutshell, the world painted is similar to that of Equilibrium but with much less action. This is not a bad thing, since this allows the cinematographer to reveal a very wonderfully crafted view of this world. The pacing of this movie moves along nicely as we plod through Tris trying to fit in as a part of the Dauntless clan. Friendships are made, lost, and so on as expected. Even more so is the romantic involvement with the mysterious Four (or 4) played by Theo James (which I believe over acted his part entirely too much). So the mystery of why the government wants to kill all Divergents must be unraveled and this leads to the majority of the story. I was happy with just sitting back and enjoying the view during many of the scenes that were almost breathtaking. Not reading the book, I hope that the movie did well to portray the story but I also know it is a trilogy so they couldn't go from start to finish all at once. Stand alone I believe the movie was quite well made and under-appreciated, swept under the rug by the highly successful Hunger Games series. You will be hard pressed not to see the similarities between them. I am looking forward to seeing what else this world has in store for us and would recommend that moviegoers join me to find out. Will you see silly acted parts, and scenes that are just there to draw you in with nice landscapes and perfectly choreographed music, YES. But why would anyone complain about something like that? I know I wouldn't. Enjoy this film, you won't regret the time you spent on it.

As a stand alone movie, Divergent was great. The cinematography was decent, but the storyline alone was marvelous. The action keeps you on the edge of your seat. The romance was well... romantic. It may have been a little too sappy and forced to me, but still cute. All in all, the movie was a perfect blend of comedy, mystery, action, drama, and romance. Thus, a new fan base was created.The only problems with this movie were the acting was a bit shaky at some points and it diverged from the books a lot too (see what I did there). The characters were well developed in the movie as well as the book, but some details about the characters were left out from the movie that were in the book. The settings and storyline did the same thing as well.

When beloved books make their way to the silver screen, the resulting movies are usually met with much frustration and rending of clothes from amongst the literary faithful. A character is changed beyond recognition; a crucial plot-point excised; an important theme lost in the murk and swell of a film. Oddly, Divergent isn't actually a bad adaptation. In fact, Neil Burger's film is as good a version of Veronica Roth's wildly patchy source novel as you're likely to get. Whether that makes for a good movie - especially for people who've never read the book - is another matter entirely.

Divergent begins in a post-apocalyptic Chicago divided into five factions, each valuing one virtue - Dauntless (courage), Erudite (wisdom), Candour (honesty), Amity (kindness), and Abnegation (self-sacrifice) - above all others. It's an odd system, perhaps, but one that is apparently necessary to keep chaos at bay. Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) has been raised in Abnegation but, try as she might, she cannot completely subsume her self or her desires. Indeed, the aptitude test that everyone must take at the age of sixteen suggests that Tris doesn't belong in just one category: she is Divergent, equally at home in three factions.

Come the day of the Choosing Ceremony, she decides to forsake her family to become Dauntless: a decision that plunges her into a nightmare initiation process in which the weakest are summarily kicked out of the faction. As Tris navigates the politics and perils of her chosen world, trying all the while to hide the fact that she's Divergent, she encounters her fair share of allies - Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Will (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) and possibly her charmingly broody instructor Four (Theo James) - and enemies, including the brutal Eric (Jai Courtney) and vicious Peter (Miles Teller).

Anyone unfamiliar with Roth's book might find themselves trying to puzzle through this seemingly shapeless mess of a plot. It ebbs and flows in odd directions, dancing around Tris' desire to be true to herself, before it gets a little lost in the dystopian clutches of Jeanine Matthews (a gleefully icy, evil Kate Winslet), an Erudite leader hellbent on bringing down the entire Abnegation faction. Along the way, Tris literally battles her fears under the influence of a simulation serum, toughens up physically, strikes up a sexy chemistry with Four and frets over her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort). Within the confines of this universe, it makes an odd kind of narrative sense, but the logic of it all never really bleeds through.

Here's the thing, though: this strange, frequently illogical plotting is very much a defining characteristic of Roth's novel - and, in fact, becomes more of a problem as the trilogy progresses. (Anyone who's read Allegiant, the controversial final novel in the series, will know just how difficult it will be to adapt.) The emotional and logical flaws present in Divergent the film, then, are - for the most part - already inherent in the book. Why does Jeanine, supposedly one of the smartest people in the community, plot and plan the way she does? How does the entire society function in this utterly dysfunctional way? Technically, Burger can't really be faulted for failing to develop a coherence and logic that was never there in the first place.

In fact, Burger actually substantially improves upon the novel in several ways - he keeps the film mostly free of Tris' inner voice, which becomes increasingly moony and silly as her crush on Four grows by the day. Burger plays up a zip-line sequence that highlights the joyful recklessness of the Dauntless, as Tris soars freely through the midnight air. He also handles the problem of Tris' fear landscape very well: instead of simply willing herself out of the influence of the serum (as the Divergent can do), she must figure out how to face each of her fears in a non-Divergent way. These scenes are shot with quick, simple visual flair, dispensing with some of the novel's trickier convolutions.

Of course, Divergent isn't a perfect adaptation either. To Roth's credit, there are some truly dark, painful moments in the novel which transcend its loopy narrative. It's no surprise, and yet it's a little disappointing, that these bits simply vanish from the film, no doubt in the interests of securing a PG-13 rating. As a result, Peter is a far less repulsive antagonist than he is on paper. For instance, he doesn't brutally (and casually) maul a fellow initiate who's doing better than him in the rankings - an incident that's crucial in the development of his character in the subsequent novels.

The young cast works hard and quite well together. Woodley makes for an intriguing screen presence, effectively playing both the steel and softness of Tris' choices. James, heretofore best known for dying in Lady Mary's bed in Downton Abbey, acquits himself reasonably well - he's not as leaden as some of the trailers have suggested, and he forges a believable chemistry with Woodley. Of the supporting players, Teller is the standout, so good in his easy malevolence that he actually makes the thought of Allegiant as a movie quite appealing.

In the final analysis, Divergent is likely to divide audiences. Fans of Roth's books should be, on the whole, pleased. This is a frequently very good, intelligent adaptation of a rather problematic novel. Everyone else, however, might be less enamoured of the final product: a film that, just like the book on which it is based, boasts a compelling story and some great ideas, but is also messily executed, overly complicated and a tad nonsensical.