Daniel's Review

First things first, 'Divergent' always gets compared to 'The Hunger Games', for having similarities, and while it has some things similar to 'The Hunger Games', its a completely different film.

 

'Divergent' follows the story of Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) who lives as an Abnegation, by birth, part of a larger society, which is divided into five factions. These factions sort people to where they belong, if they are apart of one of the five, which include Amity, Candor, Dauntless, Erudite and Abnegation; each represent a human trait, an example being Beatrice's faction as Abnegation means the selfless. Oh, and if you don't fit into these five factions, then you are declared Factionless. Basically, this is the structure on how the world works and is divided. Similar to 'The Giver', at the choosing ceremony, you must pick one of the five factions, but can only choose once, but before the ceremony, Beatrice takes the test that determines which faction she's lucky to be apart of, but Beatrice fails the test, and is labelled as a Divergent. It took a while to get to that title.

 

'Divergent' is very light on story, as it is basically a film about training, with very little of the film's story being the climax of the film; which is the last thirty minutes, and strangely, this is where the film becomes very interesting. The rest of the film is suppose to build development upon these characters, and while Shailene Woodley delivers a very strong performance, her character isn't that well developed. Oddly enough, Theo James' character, Four, does actually have some character, knowing about his fears and some back story to his character.

 

While the film can be predictable, it isn't actually that bad of a film, as I somewhat mildly enjoyed this film, but is anchored down by little story and lack of character development from the majority of the film's characters, which are robbed by scenes that would have had more of an emotional effect, if the character was more developed.

 

While 'Divergent' has its problems, it isn't all that bad, as the film had its moments of action, that worked, and a solid performance by Kate Winslet.

 

'Divergent' can be fun, but it could also have improved in being a stellar picture, but overall, it is at least worth a watch.

 

Score: 5.4/10

Published: May 4th, 2015