# Divergent - a review



## kayd_mon (Mar 22, 2014)

First off, does anyone care here? It's an adaptation, so maybe. I didn't read the book, so here's my thoughts on the film with no prior expectations. 

The premise is so stupid an unbelievable that it hurt my ability to believe anything. Everyone is grouped by personality traits, as if people only possess one of those. So silly. The whole world is unable to be believed, so there you have it. 

Moving on, the acting was fine. Tris is exactly what you'd expect from a modern female lead - she's tough, doesn't give up, fights hard, and swoons over guys with muscles that brood. The girl who plays her does well. The other characters, most of which are not memorable, do a fine job. Kate Winslet does a good job as expected, though her character is a bit iffy. 

The action was good, I thought. Good choreography, exciting, though if you think too hard, you'll quickly realize that there was no reason for that tense action scene other than the fact that it would look cool. 

The movie is entertaining, if you're not looking for a deep plot. If you ignore the obvious flaws and just go with it, then you might enjoy it. I am interested to hear opinions of people that read the book. Watching this film made me happy that I didn't try to read the booo first. I would have been disappointed, unless the book doesn't follow the same premise or plot.


----------



## Jabrosky (Mar 22, 2014)

kayd_mon said:


> The premise is so stupid an unbelievable that it hurt my ability to believe anything. Everyone is grouped by personality traits, as if people only possess one of those. So silly. The whole world is unable to be believed, so there you have it.


Exactly what I thought when I saw the trailer. I wonder if the book finds a way to explain away this problem?


----------



## kayd_mon (Mar 23, 2014)

Wow. So many typos in my OP! 

I wonder that, too. To me, it's just so nonsensical that it would need a lot of explaining in order to work. Books often have some things that don't make a whole lot of sense, but they way they are handled or explained make them work. I don't think that the film did any of that. Maybe the book did?


----------



## Ophiucha (Mar 29, 2014)

I've read the book, and no it doesn't really explain this better. Was the weird scene with the dog in it, at the beginning? In the book, the 'test' to determine what your personality was involved a dog, and you had to choose to either confront it with a piece of cheese or a knife. Knife was the fight-y group, cheese was the intelligent people, I think. And she didn't pick one, so I guess that made her divergent... it was strange.


----------



## kayd_mon (Mar 30, 2014)

Yeah that was in there. All the tests actually (the one with the dog and the nightmare one with Dauntless) felt sillier than those personality tests people take on Facebook in order to find out which Disney princess they are. 

I just had such a hard time overcoming the premise.


----------



## BWFoster78 (Mar 31, 2014)

I read the book.

While I was reading it, it kept me entertained, but both my wife and I had the same reaction at the end - we just didn't care about the character all that much.

The explanation behind the factions is that there was a big war.  In the aftermath of the all the carnage, people tried to determine what had caused it.  Each of the factions had a different theory.  The people who embrace love believe it was hatred that caused the war.  The people who embrace knowledge believe it was ignorance.  Essentially, the purpose of the faction is to dedicate yourself to stamping out the trait that you find worst in humanity.

The Divergent thing was a little less well defined.  At first, it seemed like being Divergent meant that you could belong to more than one faction, but it turns out that many people are tested to belong to one faction but choose another.  By the end of the book, Divergent means that you have the ability to resist/shape the simulation that is at the heart of the test.

Anyway, haven't seen the movie yet.  Don't get the the theaters much since we had the baby.  I'll probably end up waiting for DVD.

Thanks for the review.

Brian


----------



## kayd_mon (Mar 31, 2014)

Thanks for that. That makes the factions a bit more believable, though those details don't exactly come across in the film. 

By the end, it wasn't so much that I didn't care about Tris (though I definitely didn't care about anyone else) but I felt that the story didn't need to go any further. If it wasn't already a book trilogy, then as a moviegoer, I would think that a trilogy of films was completely unnecessary after watching the first film.


----------



## skip.knox (Apr 1, 2014)

I had the same reaction to Hunger Games. The basic premise was so absurd, I could hardly believe an agent took the manuscript. Even so, the characters were engaging and I managed to slog through the first book, with no desire to read the rest. Since Divergent was so obviously a clone of Hunger Games, I'm not interested in seeing the movie or in reading the book.

Your review confirms my decision.


----------



## kayd_mon (Apr 1, 2014)

Glad to help! If you didn't like Hunger Games, then I doubt that you would have any interest in Divergent. 

For me, Hunger Games was enjoyable, and I didn't have too much trouble buying into the first two books. The third book wasn't very good, but I expect they'll do a better job with the film. I thought that the second movie was better than the book, due to the great performances.


----------



## LeoWolfish (Apr 2, 2014)

To be fair I think the point of being a Divergent, as someone who has read the first book and knows a little about the second. Is that you have the potential to belong in more than one group, but don't really fit into any of them. Where as those who can choose one despite belonging to another might have traits stronger than the others and are more easy to predict in terms of their actions? Or in short I think the point was that divergents are unpredictable and therefore dangerous to the system. Oh and in the third book it also turns out a bit city of amber-ish in terms of the actual purpose of the factions and divergents and that is all I am going to say. Based on what other people who have read the final book and again based on what little I know about what is inside it.


----------



## ACSmyth (Apr 2, 2014)

I read Divergent and, like you, found the whole premise hard to stomach, even with the explanation. I tried to just go with it, but it rambled on through training and stuff and never really seemed to know what it wanted to be. At least with Hunger Games you knew the motivations and so on, but the book just seemed to be hot guys and tattoos. In fairness, I quite enjoyed HG, and read all three books. I could swallow the premise of that much more easily than in Divergent. I don't see me reading the other two books.

Even my 16 yo who was mad for HG isn't fussed about Divergent. The one she's waiting for at the moment is Maze Runner. She loved that book, but I have yet to try it.


----------



## LeoWolfish (Apr 2, 2014)

I just realized something. Does the whole cutting ceremony in order to decide make any sense to anyone or did that come off as odd to all of you as it did me?


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 10, 2014)

The cast system was apart of the past, and the past does repeat itself.
But it does go extreme when the casts don't interact even if family.

I don't know if it was me, or this story seemed very political.  Hunger games, I couldn't pick which political ideology it targeted. But this film seemed to side with one party and take extremes for the other party.

I don't want to get into a political discussion but was it me or does it seem to be very politically portrayed?
I am refraining from identifying the party affiliation just to avoid the political specifics. The negitives of one party taken to extremes and boxed up with the heros being the only smart ones to realize the failings?(being a part of the other political party)

Even in "V is for Vendetta" I could see both sides being the evil government, they didn't seem to make it one sided. That either side could run amock and be very evil.


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 10, 2014)

LeoWolfish said:


> I just realized something. Does the whole cutting ceremony in order to decide make any sense to anyone or did that come off as odd to all of you as it did me?


Post AIDs the blood pact idea seems unneccesarily dangerous.

But that was the significance, they made a blood pact to be in that group for life.


----------



## LeoWolfish (Apr 10, 2014)

SeverinR said:


> Post AIDs the blood pact idea seems unneccesarily dangerous.
> 
> But that was the significance, they made a blood pact to be in that group for life.




Yea I kind of got that but in the book not rejecting the knife or showing some dislike towards it meant you were likely Dauntless. So everyone is either taught how to do the cutting properly or is everyone that year at least partly Dauntless? I mean I guess I can assume that the reason in the movie they didn't show anyone messing up was to keep in track of the story. But then they never mentioned how no one ever got seriously hurt in the books either. And if they did teach how to do it in school how exactly would those lessons have gone? Would not have having them prick their fingers or something similar above their chosen factions symbol/ item have been easier? 

Though in regards to the aids thing I think each of them used a different knife. At least in the book they did anyway.


----------



## BWFoster78 (Apr 10, 2014)

> The one she's waiting for at the moment is Maze Runner. She loved that book, but I have yet to try it.



I read it and didn't care for it all that much.

My review here: Review of The Maze Runner | Brian W. Foster


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 10, 2014)

LeoWolfish said:


> Yea I kind of got that but in the book not rejecting the knife or showing some dislike towards it meant you were likely Dauntless. So everyone is either taught how to do the cutting properly or is everyone that year at least partly Dauntless? I mean I guess I can assume that the reason in the movie they didn't show anyone messing up was to keep in track of the story. But then they never mentioned how no one ever got seriously hurt in the books either. And if they did teach how to do it in school how exactly would those lessons have gone? Would not have having them prick their fingers or something similar above their chosen factions symbol/ item have been easier?
> 
> Though in regards to the aids thing I think each of them used a different knife. At least in the book they did anyway.


They didn't make a point to show it, but the knife was "clean" each time.


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 10, 2014)

kayd_mon said:


> Moving on, the acting was fine. Tris is exactly what you'd expect from a modern female lead - she's tough, doesn't give up, fights hard, and swoons over guys with muscles that brood.


In all fairness, at least in the movie, he swooned over her before she swooned over him.


----------



## A. E. Lowan (Apr 10, 2014)

I haven't seen the movie or read the books, but I do have a couple questions from what I've seen of the previews and read here that really make me skeptical about investing in either experience.  First, can someone explain to me what exactly is brave about pulling a knife on a dog?  And secondly (I'm getting this from the previews), if you're a Divergent and in hiding it for fear of your life, why would you tattoo this fact over a large surface of your body, when lifting up your shirt or playing "skins" is a dead give-away to your status?


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 11, 2014)

A. E. Lowan said:


> I haven't seen the movie or read the books, but I do have a couple questions from what I've seen of the previews and read here that really make me skeptical about investing in either experience.  First, can someone explain to me what exactly is brave about pulling a knife on a dog?  And secondly (I'm getting this from the previews), if you're a Divergent and in hiding it for fear of your life, why would you tattoo this fact over a large surface of your body, when lifting up your shirt or playing "skins" is a dead give-away to your status?


The Tatoos didn't devulge divergence. They are just a personal expression of art.
Might you be talking of "Four's" tattoo?  I kind of wondered that too. Getting all the factions tattoo'd does seem to exhibit 
divergence clues.

I did have a problem with 4's name.
He picked 4, because he has 4 fears. But he wouldn't have found out about his fears until the second part of his training.
(fear of heights, most people figure that one out quickly. but the rest?)


----------



## A. E. Lowan (Apr 12, 2014)

SeverinR said:


> The Tatoos didn't devulge divergence. They are just a personal expression of art.
> Might you be talking of "Four's" tattoo?  I kind of wondered that too. Getting all the factions tattoo'd does seem to exhibit
> divergence clues.



I'm not sure who he is.  It looked like the male lead in the previews, though.  They seemed to indicate through dialogue that he had all four faction symbols (I guess *shrug*) tattooed down his spine, as the centerpiece to a full-back tattoo.


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 14, 2014)

A. E. Lowan said:


> I'm not sure who he is.  It looked like the male lead in the previews, though.  They seemed to indicate through dialogue that he had all four faction symbols (I guess *shrug*) tattooed down his spine, as the centerpiece to a full-back tattoo.


I kind of felt if I was the terrible "Divergent", I wouldn't make a point of getting all factions tattooed on me. But hey thats me.
He was the male lead, and he did have the tats.


----------



## feathertoad (Apr 30, 2014)

I haven't watched the movie yet, do you guys recommend this movie?


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 30, 2014)

I saw it at a budget movie theater, I enjoyed it.
Not sure I'd pay full price for it though.


----------



## kayd_mon (Apr 30, 2014)

As I said in the OP, it's stupid as far as story and premise, but entertaining in the way that a summer action movie is. It's similar to Transformers in that there is no value to the story, but you might like the looks of everything and the action is exciting.  Not all movies have to be smart, but if you're looking for an art-flick, then go elsewhere.


----------



## SirNateable (May 17, 2014)

The second Hunger Games was really well done. As for divergent I have not yet seen it. It has received mixed reviews on Rotten Tomato though, so I'll need to check it out for myself.


----------

