Review: Divergent

Review: Divergent
*Spoilers Alert
  Do NOT forget tor ate this post when you finish.

Official 'Divergent' Poster.

      A new attempt to launch the new big teen franchise, 'Divergent' in the bigger picture succeeds in making just that, but still has its mistakes that could have been corrected.

"Shailene Woodley".

"Theo James".

      After the era of a great war, in dystopian Chicago, people are divided into five fractions: 'Abnegation'(Selfless), 'Amity'(Peaceful), 'Candor'(Truthful), 'Erudite'(Intelligent) and 'Dauntless'(Brave). According to each person's personality, people are divided into these five fractions in order to avoid the mistakes done of the previous world. At the age of 16, 'Beatrice Prior'(Shailene Woodley) along with other 16 year old citizens in order to take the aptitude test to determine their personality and soon choose freely which fraction they would like to choose for life. After being revealed by 'Tori'(Maggie Q) that the results of her aptitude test were inconclusive and that she is a 'divergent'(part of a small percentage of people who do not belong to any of the five fractions), 'Beatrice' must redefine herself or else she will be caught and killed. She decided to join the 'Dauntless' and train to become fearless warrior named 'Tris'. But soon she will realize that keeping this secret and changing herself will be harder than she imagined and that she will be an integral part of a greater plan. Other major characters include 'Dauntless' member 'Four'(Theo James), 'Beatrice''s brother 'Caleb Prior'(Ansel Elgort), tough 'Dauntless' member 'Eric'(Jai Courtney), 'Erudite' leader 'Jeanine Mathews'(Kate Winslet), council member of 'Abnegation' 'Marcus Eaton'(Ray Stevenson), 'Beatrice''s parents 'Andrew Prior'(Tony Goldwyn) and 'Natalie Prior'(Ashley Judd), member of the 'Dauntless' fraction 'Christina'(Zoe Kravitz), member of the 'Dauntless' faction 'Peter Hayes'(Miles Teller), member of the Dauntless faction 'Max'(Mekhi Phifer), and member of 'Dauntless' fraction 'Will'(Ben Lloyd Huges).

"Kate Winslet".

"Ashley Judd" and
"Tony Goldwyn".

      All of us know that ever since the success of the 'Harry Potter' franchise and after that both 'Twilight' and 'TheHunger Games', production companies have been releasing year after year with potential movies that could fill that box and become a huge success. Adaptation of books into movies have been very prominent, from 'TheHost(2013)' to 'The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones', many movies were transitioning into the big screen. But the main problem was the repeating of many themes that previously occurred in these kinds of movies ;moreover, the lack of building an innovative or engaging story was one of the main problems that these movies had. 'Divergent' the book had great potential due to the great fan base it had, and when Summit Entertainment acquired the rights of the movie, fans were thrilled so did movie critics due to the wealth the movie had in terms of story-telling. Is 'Divergent' the new 'Hunger Games' and 'Twilight'? The answer would be sort of, it had many of the good points 'The HungerGames' had but also included many negative points that 'Twilight' had. Which would explain the critics were divided about their liking of the movie.

"Merkhi Phifer" and "Jai Courtney".

"Maggie Q" and
"Shailene Woodley".

      "Neil Burger" is known for his directorial work on the 2006 movie 'The Illusionist' and the 2011 movie 'Limitless'. He is known in his previous work for providing a solid and polished movie that does its main intent, but fails to bring the wow factor. In 'Divergent', he more or less does the same thing, giving us a nice movie that pretty much keeps itself stable, but fails to awe-us or bring us a fully realized cinematic experience. The use of CGI and special effects was lackluster, which is understandable seeing the small budget it had. The screenplay, which was penned by "Evan Daugherty"('Snow White andthe Huntsman') and "Vanessa Taylor"('Hope Springs') did a solid job with the story(though a full assessment can't be made since I haven't read the book), though many characters and subplots were merely used to the minimum of their potential. "Tom Holkenborg"('Paranoia'), also known as 'Junkie XL', composed a beautiful score using "Ellie Goulding" as well as other artist to be incorporated in the movie very well. "Hans Zimmer"('Man of Steel') acted as executive producer of the score, which his experience definitely helped with input to the score.

"Shailene Woodley" and
"Theo James".

"Ansel Elgort" and
"Shailene Woodley".

      The beginning of the movie introduced us to the main premise of the movie and its building block of the story in a very minimal time yet efficiently. The middle part felt a bit dragged out and many scenes that could have been replaced by more important plots. The final part was the one that was the heaviest in action sequences. As for the ending, I mentioned it before it kind of hurts the core of the movie but set up in an ambiguous way the future sequels. What bugged me a bit about the movie is the lack of serious development that it had in many subplots, such as the remaining fractions and many of the characters, a point that could have enriched the movie with more narrative power. My personal favorite scenes of the movie were the dream sequences, which in my opinion brought a new thing to the table and were executed in a clever manner that supported the story. Other favorite scenes were capture-the-flag game scene, 'Beatrice/Tris' and 'Four' interaction scenes and the climax battle.

"Shailene Woodley" and
"Theo James" 

"Shailene Woodley", "Zoe Kravitz",
and "Ben Lloyd Hughes"/

      The vast array of actors and actresses was one of the positives of the movie, but the utilization of many was wasted. "Shailene Woodley" was the star of the movie. "Shailene" has been on the rise showing her acting skills and abilities in 'The Descendants' with "George Clooney" back in 2011. She performed an incredible job being able to show pretty much every emotion throughout the whole movie, though there were some awkward moments. Same could be said to "Theo James", who also did an incredible job in the lead and was able to match "Shailene" and not fall under her in the movie. Their chemistry was definitely a high point and showed during their interaction scenes. "Maggie Q", "Kate Winslet", "Ray Stevenson", "Ashley Judd" "Tony Goldwyn" and "Mekhi Phifer" are established and respectable actors/actresses, whose unfortunate talent was misused within the story. That being said, all of them had their shining moments(some more than other like "Kate Winslet" and "Ashley Judd"). Hopefully the returning ones will be used in a bigger and engaging manner. "Jai Courtney" performed well and gave his own stamp to his character, "Miles Teller" as usual shined as much as he could, while "Ansel Elgort" and "Zoe Kravitz" were believable. The remaining supporting actors/actresses did well.

      Finally, 'Divergent' could be described as a successful attempt at a new 'it-franchise'. Hopefully in the future sequels planned mistakes will be rectified.

Official 'Divergent' Poster.

-'Divergent' Info:
-Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet, Ray Stevenson, Jai Courtney, Maggie Q, Miles Teller, Zoe Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Mekhi Phifer, Tony Goldwyn and Ashley Judd.
-Based on: 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth.
-Studio(s): Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate.
-Directed by: Neil Burger.
-Screenplay by: Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor.
-Music by: Junkie XL.
-Running Time: 139 minutes.
-Budget: $ 85,000,000.
-Box Office: -Domestic(US): $ 150,947,895.
                    -Foreign: $ 137,800,000.
-Ratings: -IMdb: 7.6/10.
              -Rotten Tomatoes: 40%.
              -Metacritic: 48%.

              -PERSONAL RATING: 7.6/10.

-'Divergent' Trailer: