Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Divergent

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Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 04-02-2014, 11:19 PM:

This was a surprise to me as it was much better than what the reviews are saying. I found the movie to be more adult oriented than young adult, and I think that will hurt the box office long term. The movie felt like an 80s movie.

The main cast were good, I liked the new girl who plays Tris. I think she was good. The movie kind of falls flat in the climax but it still worked.

I know this is supposed to be a trilogy but it was still a good movie on its own. I don't rarely care if I see the sequel. I enjoyed the story and I had a good time.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-07-2014, 04:27 AM:

This movie is clearly targeted on young adults, especially women seem to be attracted. If I had to judge from the audience alone, I would swear I was going to watch a Twilight movie. Luckily, the movie turned out to be more like "The Hunger Games Reloaded" instead of another Twilight installment.

Divergent, the first movie in a supposed trilogy, based on the 2011 novel with the same name, is a story set in a dystopian future Chicago. Seemingly, after a great war, most of the world has been left to shambles. Chicago is looking mostly intact, although even many years after the war, nobody found the necessity to fix the most glaring damage to the many hi-rise buildings.

Lake Michigan is looking more like a dried up pond, most buildings are fitted with some kind of wind turbines, the preferred way of transportation is either by elevated tram or via suspension cables between buildings. To keep the bad guys at distance, the whole thing is surrounded by a great wall, which has some eery similarities to the Russian Woodpecker.

One of the weakest parts of the movie is that it comes with a somewhat lengthily introduction, instead of making the first movie about exploring the universe.

In this iteration of the future, society is divided into five factions: Abnegation (The Selfless), Erudite (The Intelligent), Dauntless (The Brave), Amity (The Peaceful) and Candor (The Honest). Then there are the "Factionless", they can best be compared to the homeless. You are born into a certain faction, but at a certain age, you're free to choose another faction, after being given a test which tells you what faction matches best, which you're more or less supposed to follow.

The story revolves almost entirely around "Tris", a young adult that gets an "inconclusive" from her test, which almost never happens and is seen as a great sign of danger. Her examiner decides to wipe all traces of her test results, because being "divergent" is being considered a threat to society.

Burdened with her inconclusive test result, she finally decides to join the Dauntless faction. Soon she finds out that she has a hard time to fit in, additionally, the ones in power, slowly find out that she doesn't fit in and is therefore a danger to society...

The obligatory love story is also included, as Tris finds out that "Four", one of the leading figures in the Dauntless faction isn't entirely who he claims to be.

Although the story itself is pretty much a closed loop, I don't think this whole thing can stand on it's own. There are way to many questions left unanswered especially regarding the whole setup of this world, which will probably be explored in the two sequels (which have already been written and probably are still pending depending on the box office results of this one).

All in all, an OK movie, which unfortunately, could have been a lot better if a seasoned story writer would have worked it out. Get rid of that stupid introduction and the cheesy love story for example. Also, make it feel less like The Hunger Games please.