Divergent is an aimless, lifeless, moronic bore that rightfully replaces Twilight as the new young adult franchise destined to earn boat-loads of cash and zero respect from moviegoers.
At least Twilight had some unintentional laughs to keep me entertained.
Divergent, the first of a best-selling trilogy of novels, tells the story of a girl in a not-so-dystopian-but-still-called-dystopian future where people are split up into “factions”. They are given tests and are told which group they best belong to—or something like that. But it doesn’t matter in the social aspect of things, because in the end they just choose wherever they want to go.
This all started as a way to keep peace after a war that destroyed everything—or something like that. How does splitting people up keep peace? What was the war over and who was it against? Why does Chicago look so nice if everything was destroyed?
I will never know because the movie fails to go into any of it in the slightest way, despite its immense setting importance. Lack of detail is this movie’s claim to fame.
Even our heroine, Tris (Shailene Woodley) isn’t given the common courtesy of a backstory, or even scenes illustrating her true character as the movie goes on.
Within minutes Tris is thrust into this world where she’s told she’s a Divergent, which means she doesn’t truly belong in any group. What traits about her make this possible?
No clue, because we have no idea who Tris really is or what defines anything in this makeshift world. Apparently everyone who had a hand in writing this hates anyone with a functioning brain.
Despite the fact the whole story hinges on the fact Tris will never truly belong and will somehow bring about the downfall of their whole society (even though we see none of the factions interact in the slightest way), she soon fits right in with the faction called Dauntless.
These are the warriors of the land, but were introduced through Tris’s narration as just being “really cool” as they skip and run merrily in the streets like dumb tweens in a Katy Perry video. What do they protect against? Yet again, I don’t know because NO ONE DOES OR SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING.
As she fits in with her new faction—gaining and losing character traits like they were TV remotes— it becomes apparent Tris indeed can fit into any group, quite easily in fact. So now the main plot device of not fitting in can be thrown out the window as it has now become irrelevant.
Even though her being a Divergent is the main storyline (so I was told by other people, not the movie itself), way too much time is spent on her training to become a Dauntless, making her Divergent-ness all the more irrelevant.
Finally, after two hours of nothingness layered over conflict lacking scenes of greater nothingness, the story of why being a Divergent is so sinful comes to a very dim and uneventful light.
Through a series of laughable dream/hallucinating/odd test sequences we see that what makes Tris so special: She’s able to think of ways to get herself out random situations…just like anyone else with eyes and functioning mind.
However, in the movie, as they use some random serum to warp the Dauntless into killing people, Tris and her beau Four (Theo James) are immune because they are both Divergent, which we are told means they have a right to choose, as oppose to blindly obeying like the others.
But there lies the problem. In the beginning they are all able to choose and decide their own fate, with no interference at all. In no way shape or form is there any attempt to illustrate that anyone other than a Divergent is susceptible to manipulation, or that anyone is truly different from anyone.
So this makes this little unveil from their sort-of-villain (Kate Winslet) all the more, how do you say, stupid. In the writing world we call it a contradiction, and it’s a pretty big no-no.
Sure, sure, I’m sure it makes sense in the book but I didn’t read it and I shouldn’t have to. Any good adaptation will take the creativity and main story of the book and bring it to life gracefully a la Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. You don’t need to read the book to get the gist of things, or to care what happens to the characters in those movies because they were handled with care and imagination.
I left with more questions and a bigger headache than when I came in.
My biggest question is one I’ll never be able to answer: Why, for the love of God, was all of this happening? None of it made any sense as random scene after scene was thrown at the screen like a monkey chucking feces in a festive manner. A Jedi could’ve come crashing down in the Iron Man suit and they’d try to pass it off as plot.
The story makes less than no sense, the characters and environments are bland, the action sequences are cheap and sometimes laughable, and worst of all there is little to no detail or development of anything that happens at any time. Designed to follow along The Hunger Games but done in all the wrong ways, this is young adult pandering at its worst.
