the divergent movie review

"Divergent"

“Divergent” is all about identity—about searching your soul and determining who you are and how you fit in as you emerge from adolescence to adulthood. So it’s all too appropriate that the film version of the wildly popular young adult novel struggles a bit to assert itself as it seeks to appeal to the widest possible audience.

It’s the conundrum so many of these types of books face as they become pop-culture juggernauts and film franchises: which elements to keep to please the fervent fans and which to toss in the name of maintaining a lean, speedy narrative? The “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games” movies—which “Divergent” resembles in myriad ways—were mostly successful in finding that balance.

In bringing the first novel of Veronica Roth’s best-selling trilogy to the screen, director Neil Burger (“ Limitless “) and screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor have included key moments and images but tweaked others to streamline the mythology and move the story along. The results can be thrilling but the film as a whole feels simultaneously overlong and emotionally truncated.

Folks who’ve read the book will probably be satisfied with the results, while those unfamiliar with the source material may dismiss it as derivative and inferior. (Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: “Divergent” takes place in a rigidly structured, dystopian future where one extraordinary girl will serve either as its destroyer or its savior.) But the performances—namely from stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James and Kate Winslet in a juicy supporting role—always make the movie watchable and often quite engaging.

In the fenced-off remnants of a post-war Chicago 100 years from now, society has been broken down into five factions—groups of people arranged by a primary, defining trait. The Amity are happy, hippie farmers who dress in shades of sorbet. The Candor run the judicial system and value truth about all else. The Erudite are the serious-minded scholars who wear conservative, dark blue. The Abnegation are known for their selflessness and modesty. And the pierced-and-tatted Dauntless are the brave soldiers who protect the city from … who knows what? Whatever the perceived threat is, it requires them to run, scream and practice parkour wherever they go.

Woodley’s Beatrice Prior is a member of the Abnegation alongside her brother, Caleb ( Ansel Elgort ), and their parents ( Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn ). They dress in drab colors, eat simply and are only allowed to steal a quick glance in the mirror once every three months when it’s time for a haircut. Basically, they’re no fun, and Beatrice has a wild streak in her that she’s been forced to suppress.  

When she undergoes the aptitude test required of all teens, which determines which faction is the best reflection of one’s true nature, her results are inconclusive. She’s got pieces of a few different places in her, which makes her what’s known as Divergent, which makes her dangerous. Thinking for yourself is a naughty thing in this world, apparently; plus, the angsty inner conflict that rages within Beatrice is something to which the target audience for the book (and the movie) surely can relate.

At the annual Choosing Ceremony, where the teens use their test results to pick the faction they want to join for the rest of their lives—like the last night of sorority rush, mixed with the “Harry Potter” sorting hat—Beatrice dares to choose Dauntless. This means she can never see her family again. (Man, the rules are strict in dystopian futures.) But it also means she gets to train to unleash the bad-ass that’s been lurking inside her all along.

Renaming herself Tris, our heroine must learn how to fight, shoot, jump from moving trains, throw knives and control her mind in a series of harrowing simulations, all while competing against a couple dozen other initiates in a demanding ranking system. Eric (a coolly intimidating Jai Courtney ) is the merciless Dauntless leader who’s taking the faction—which was founded on the notion of noble courage—in a more militant and vicious direction.

But the hunky trainer who goes by the name Four (James) is the one who will have a greater impact on the woman Tris will become. Quietly and generically brooding at first, James reveals more depth and shading to his conflicted character as the story’s stakes increase. He and Woodley have an easy chemistry with each other, but the romance that took its time and smoldered on the page feels a bit rushed on the screen.

Similarly, the supporting figures who had identifiable personalities in the book mostly blend into the background here, including Tris’ best friend, Christina ( Zoe Kravitz ). But it is extremely amusing to see Miles Teller , who played Woodley’s first love last year in the wonderful “ The Spectacular Now ,” serve as her enemy here as the conniving fellow initiate Peter. The smart-alecky Teller is also the only actor here who gets to have much fun. With the exception of a few major set pieces—the zip-line ride from the top of the John Hancock Center, for example—”Divergent” is a rather dark and heavy endeavor.

Woodley, though, by virtue of the sheer likability of her presence, keeps you hanging on, keeps you rooting for her. She may not have the blazing, rock-star power of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in “ The Hunger Games ,” but there’s a subtlety and a naturalism to her performance that make her very accessible and appealing. And when she needs to crank it up and kick some butt—as she does in a climactic scene with Winslet as the evil Erudite leader who’s hell-bent on eradicating Divergents and maintaining control—she doesn’t oversell it.

Plus, there could be worse role models for the eager adolescent audience than a young woman who’s thoughtful, giving and strong—all at once. The inevitable sequel will show us what else she’s got in her.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Maggie Q as Tori
• Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews
• Ray Stevenson as Marcus Eaton
• Ansel Elgort as Caleb Prior
• Theo James as Tobias "Four" Eaton
• Shailene Woodley as Beatrice Prior / Tris
• Zoë Kravitz as Christina
• Miles Teller as Peter
• Jai Courtney as Eric
• Evan Daugherty
• Neil Burger
• Vanessa Taylor

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Divergent: film review.

Shailene Woodley and Theo James topline the first of three features based on novelist Veronica Roth’s postapocalyptic trilogy.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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Dystopia is no picnic for most everyone involved, but in the future world of Divergent , it’s especially hard on teens. At the heart of Veronica Roth ’s YA bestseller is a provocative existential dilemma involving adolescence and identity: At age 16, everyone must choose which of society’s stringently defined factions they’ll join. That could mean staying on home turf or leaving family far behind, and it’s an irreversible decision. In an era when you’re never too young to not just choose a career but to launch one, it’s an idea with particular resonance.

It’s also an idea that loses much of its potency in the movie adaptation, as director Neil Burger struggles to fuse philosophy, awkward romance and brutal action. Even with star Shailene Woodley delivering the requisite toughness and magnetism, the clunky result is almost unrelentingly grim. Dystopia can be presented in dynamic ways, but this iteration of it is, above all, no picnic for the audience.

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Lukewarm reviews might squelch curiosity among those unfamiliar with the trilogy of books, but the must-see factor among fans will ensure a robust opening for Summit, which has two sequels in the works and the next installment, Insurgent , fast-tracked for early-2015 release.

Like most social science fiction, the story, set in a war-ravaged Chicago in an unspecified future, is propelled by the friction between freethinkers and an authoritarian regime. Protagonist Beatrice Prior (Woodley) faces particular jeopardy because she’s a rare and dangerous bird: a so-called Divergent, who doesn’t fit neatly into one of the prescribed categories that control every aspect of life.

Like the source material, the film begins on the eve of the Choosing Ceremony, as 16-year-old Beatrice submits to the aptitude test — a personality quiz via drug-induced hallucination — that will tell her which faction suits her best. The inconclusive results alarm her tester (a well-cast Maggie Q ), who warns her never to tell a soul that she’s Divergent. Being uncategorizable makes Beatrice a threat to the social order.

Perhaps reaching too quickly for the epic, the screen adaptation, credited to Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor , skimps on setting up the Prior family dynamics, lessening the emotional impact of the ceremony in which both Beatrice and her brother, Caleb ( Ansel Elgort ), opt to transfer out of Abnegation, the faction of the selfless. Beatrice has never felt as naturally charitable as her parents ( Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn ), and her face lights up whenever she sees the Dauntless, the brave ones who snarl and rollick like a bunch of punk rockers; they’re as boisterous and defiant as the members of Abnegation are low-key and self-effacing.

PHOTOS: Shailene Woodley’s Career in Pictures

Beatrice’s first moments with her new tribe bear out the sense of thrills and danger she observed from a distance. Jumping from a moving train — the Dauntless way of arriving, and one of the film’s best sequences — she gets to experience the kinetic physicality long denied her. (The rusted-out but still functioning elevated trains are a standout component of Andy Nicholson ’s production design.)

But soon after Beatrice joins the Dauntless, and redubs herself Tris, she finds that train jumping, building scaling and other wild behavior isn’t the choice of free spirits but the requirement of soldiers in training. The subterranean Pit that serves as Dauntless HQ is a bleak place, devoid of humor or brightness — as is the movie.

Tris’ martial indoctrination takes up much of the first hour, putting her in a number of punishing mano-a-mano bouts with other initiates. Those who don’t prove their mettle will end up among the “factionless,” outcasts subsisting on the streets of a city where you can never go home again.

Instructor Four (a commanding Theo James , of Underworld: Awakening ) takes an interest in Tris and her survival, mitigating the merciless demands of leader Eric ( Jai Courtney ). Predictably, things steam up: Four shows Tris his tattoo and, in an act of real intimacy, invites her into his chemically produced nightmare, the better to prepare her for the final hurdle in her training: a fear test that’s an obvious variation on Room 101 in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four .

PHOTOS: Exclusive Portraits of Shailene Woodley

In small roles, some of which will probably take on greater weight in the next film, Mekhi Phifer and Ray Stevenson play faction leaders, and Zoe Kravitz and Miles Teller are two initiates from Candor (faction of the truth tellers).

Kate Winslet  shows up in icy-blonde mode as Jeanine, a ferocious proponent of the brave new world’s social engineering and leader of the Erudite, the brainy faction that’s waging a campaign to discredit the ruling Abnegation. (The peaceful Amity faction barely registers in the film.) A conversation between Jeanine and Tris offers a few moments of refreshingly sublimated hostility. Otherwise, such high-wire tension is MIA as nearly every exchange hits the nail squarely on the head (echoing the plain prose of the book).

Carlo Poggioli  brings a utilitarian expressiveness to the color-coded faction outfits, while Nicholson’s sets excel at industrial grunge; Chicago’s Navy Pier and its Ferris wheel make for a vivid abandoned amusement park. In general, though, the postwar cityscape feels generic, captured in straightforward widescreen images by cinematographer Alwin Kuchler , who created a far more affecting sense of dystopian malaise in the underappreciated Code 46 .

The score by Junkie XL ( Hans Zimmer is credited as executive score producer) is rousing when appropriate and mostly unobtrusive, unlike the tone-deaf use of indie-pop and techno tracks at key points in the action ( Randall Poster is the music supervisor).

Woodley, a sensitive performer, is hamstrung by the screenplay but lends her role relatability and a convincing athleticism. Burger and Kuchler’s unfortunate preference for mascara-ad close-ups, however, detracts from the character’s grit.

In the hands of Burger, whose credits include The Illusionist and Limitless , the story’s elements of spectacle, decay, symbolism and struggle only rarely feel fully alive. Lackluster direction in the early installments of other YA franchises hasn’t slowed their momentum, though. Divergent will be no exception.

Opens: Friday, March 21 (Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment) Production: Red Wagon Entertainment Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Tony Goldwyn, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer, Kate Winslet Director: Neil Burger Screenwriters: Evan Daugherty, Vanessa Taylor Based on the novel by Veronica Roth Producers: Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shahbazian Executive producers: John J. Kelly, Rachel Shane Director of photography: Alwin Kuchler Production designer: Andy Nicholson Music: Junkie XL Executive score producer: Hans Zimmer Co-producer: Veronica Roth Costume designer: Carlo Poggioli Editors: Richard Francis-Bruce, Nancy Richardson PG-13; 139 minutes

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Review: ‘Divergent’ Starring Shailene Woodley, Kate Winslet, Miles Teller & More

Todd gilchrist.

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The cornerstone of young adult fiction is its exploration of personal, emotional issues through the filter of ridiculously high stakes, not the least of which because teenagers equate their feelings with the center of the universe. But when film adaptations of that material build real universes to physically embody those issues, the results are decidedly mixed, exemplified by Neil Burger ’s realization of “ Divergent .”

Using Veronica Roth ’s dystopian future as the foundation for a story of self-actualization, Burger succeeds in aping the cool proficiency of its obvious cinematic predecessor, “ The Hunger Games ,” unfortunately without elevating Roth’s concept to more than an effective if slightly overwrought academic exercise.

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Shailene Woodley (“ The Spectacular Now ”) plays Tris, a young woman raised in a futuristic society where its citizens are divided into five factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Erudite, and Dauntless. Tested for her aptitude in each, her results come back inconclusive—“divergent,” a forbidden designation since it violates the one-quality-per-person system installed by the government. But when she’s allowed to choose which faction she wants to join, she picks Dauntless, and soon finds herself being trained by Four ( Theo James ) to defend society from invisible threats that lurk beyond the city walls.

Struggling to keep pace physically but outclassing her fellow trainees in strategy and planning, Tris is forced to hide her gifts in order not to attract the attention of government leaders, like Jeanine Matthews ( Kate Winslet ), and Erudite, to whom divergents are seen as a threat. But when Erudite stages a coup to overthrow Abnegation’s rule using Dauntless’ ranks as enforcers, Tris finds herself not only in a fight for her life, but all of society as civil war erupts between factions.

At almost 140 minutes, there’s no better way to describe “Divergent” than as a bit of a slog. Where at the very least “The Hunger Games” (and its sequel) shuffled quickly from macro to micro with its world building, Burger’s film takes its time introducing the idea of factions, and devotes enormous attention to Tris’ identity crisis before audiences get any real sense of the larger societal issues that will be explored.

But notwithstanding the ridiculousness of the notion that a society would ever consider this system an effective way of addressing its problems, needless to say there’s something provocative about the concept of a world that seems to have you figured out even before you do. In that regard, this is bullseye teen material, not just in terms of the practical challenges of choosing a college and a major, but the notion that every choice you make is not just defining, but evaluated by others, whether it’s how you dress or behave, what friends you pick, or what your appetites are.

That said, the way the movie defines the factions is thoughtful but indisputably silly. Members of Dauntless, for example, seem to run everywhere they go, and they travel by constantly running trains, which they jump on and off to board and disembark. Needless to say, the factions are all simplistically rendered, because they’re simplistically conceived, and while those primary colors provide the story with clear conflicts, they reduce the complexity of those conflicts, as if it’s remotely possible to simply focus on one personality characteristic, or switch off others, once a largely arbitrary decision has been made which is most important to each individual.

Thankfully, Woodley makes for more than uncertain enough of a hero to add detail and meaning to the implosion of this world. Not unlike “The Hunger Games” actress Jennifer Lawrence , there’s little artifice to her performance, and the mundane honesty of her reactions create a believability that the world would otherwise lack. As Four, meanwhile, James manages the considerable accomplishment of seeming like a real grown-up man rather than a teenage girl’s image of a dreamy boy, and he makes the character’s transformation from hardass to collaborator seem natural, if inevitable. Meanwhile, Winslet conveys one-dimensional menace in a way that is probably more attributable to the script than her skill as an actress.

But ultimately, the elasticity of the story—its sometimes lackadaisical, others aggressive pacing—is what may challenge audiences to embrace this in the way it has “The Hunger Games” even more than the silliness of its universe. Because there’s some genuinely great ideas in the film, and some terrific character work, but it’s given such uneven attention, alternately languished upon and glossed over, that the portrait Burger creates feels complete without, well, making us feel a whole lot else.

Ultimately, Burger’s film is, to its credit, probably second-best among the YA adaptations that Hollywood has mounted since “ Twilight ” put the subgenre on the map. But with a second installment already going into production, one hopes that the series’ world-building is done and its world-living can begin. Because the quality that “Divergent” still lacks is the broader emotional resonance that makes it distinctive—which is why, for the time being, it’s not yet being defined by anything other than what it isn’t. [B-]

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Film Review: ‘Divergent’

This latest attempt to cash in on the YA craze fails to work as an engaging standalone movie.

By Andrew Barker

Andrew Barker

Senior Features Writer

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Even though it stretches to nearly two-and-a-half hours and concludes with an extended gun battle, by the time “ Divergent ” ends, it still seems to be in the process of clearing its throat. Blame it on burdensome commercial expectations, perhaps: Adapted from the first novel in Veronica Roth ’s blockbuster YA series, this film has clearly been designated an heir apparent to Summit-Lionsgate’s massively lucrative teen-targeted “Twilight” and “Hunger Games” properties. Yet director Neil Burger seems so concerned with laying franchise groundwork that he neglects to create an engaging standalone movie, and “Divergent’s” uncertain sense of setting, bloated plot, drab visual style and solid yet underwhelming lead turns from Shailene Woodley and Theo James don’t necessarily make the best case for series newcomers. Fans of the books will turn out for what should be a very profitable opening weekend, but with future installments already on the release calendar, the film’s B.O. tea leaves will surely be read with care.

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While the obvious takeaway from the successes of “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” would seem to be that properties once considered the domain of teenage girls have every bit as much crossover potential as those marketed to their brothers, a number of studios have instead simply opted to stripmine serialized young-adult fiction for stories with superficially similar elements. Set in a dystopian society with a “chosen one” heroine and prominent time given over to a moony, chaste romance, “Divergent” certainly fits that bill.

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The film takes place in a decaying futuristic version of Chicago, where society has reorganized itself into five distinct factions based on personality types, and named after words that “Divergent’s” target audience will soon need to learn for their SATs: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. (Why some factions are named with adjectives and others with nouns is a mystery that future installments will hopefully unravel.)

Speaking of the SAT, a standardized test is of paramount importance to teenage life in the film’s universe as well. At the age of 16, all youths must pick the faction where they will spend the rest of their lives, after a hallucinatory exam recommends where they are best suited. Of course, the results are secret, the test-takers are free to choose whichever faction they like, and the majority simply elect to stay right where they were born, which does call into question the test’s importance.

Protagonist Beatrice Prior (Woodley) is the daughter of an Abnegation official (Tony Goldwyn) who lives with her nurturing mother (Ashley Judd) and twin brother, Caleb (Ansel Elgort). She has never felt at ease with her faction’s modest, self-denying lifestyle, and when she takes the test, her results prove inconclusive, suggesting she’s equally adept at three different skillsets. Her tester (Maggie Q) hurries her out of the building, explaining that she is a rare species of “Divergent,” and must keep this information secret lest terrible consequences befall her. This is the first of many doom-laden warnings she’ll be given by characters who don’t have the time to explain them in any detail.

When Choosing Day arrives, the Prior twins shock the whole city by both opting for new factions. Caleb selects the snobbish Erudite faction, lead by the oleaginous, power-hungry Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet, doing what sounds conspicuously close to a Hillary Clinton impression). Beatrice defects to the warrior class Dauntless, a whooping, hollering, aerially detraining bunch with a fashion aesthetic that falls midway between “UFC fighter” and “Hot Topic clerk.”

Initiation into the new faction begins immediately, and Beatrice (now taking on the newer, hipper name of Tris) finds herself taking skyscraper trust falls and participating in brutal sparring matches with fellow initiates. She soon learns that those who fail to pass muster with the Dauntless clique are cast out (un-Daunted?) to join the untouchable “factionless” caste who live on the streets. Further complicating matters is her pair of bickering instructors: the hunky, granite-jawed Four (Theo James) — who shoots Tris the sort of pensive glances that suggest he’s struggling to decide on a font for their wedding invitations — and the serpentine Eric (Jai Courtney).

Meanwhile, as the initiation rituals take up most of the film’s focus, a power struggle deepens between Erudite and Abnegation, and Tris slowly starts to piece together why being outed as Divergent could prove so perilous.

If the story seems to be diverging into too many narrative factions at once, indeed it is. And by trying to cram in as many explanatory info dumps as possible, Burger neglects to tend to the elements of the film that could easily make up for any narrative deficiencies: namely, a sense of place and a feeling of urgency.

Despite all the tidings of war and eminent threat of banishment, the initiates rarely seem particularly nervous. It doesn’t help that scripters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor excise a number of the darker sequences from Roth’s book, while Burger conspires to show nothing more sanguinary than minor nosebleeds and bruises for the first two acts, even when characters are putting each other into the hospital with great regularity. And for a hyper-militarized, technologically advanced, segregated dystopian society on the verge of factional conflict, the city’s various zones seem to have all the security and surveillance capacity of a Club Med.

Unlike the “Harry Potter” series’ tangible, fully dimensional Hogwarts or “The Hunger Games’” colorfully variegated districts, “Divergent’s” vision of new Chicago doesn’t have much to distinguish it from a standard-issue post-apocalyptic pic. Shot on location in the Windy City, the film rarely lingers for too long on urban exterior environments, with interiors sometimes appearing very much like soundstages, and the decor in the Dauntless faction’s social hub, dubbed “the Pit,” looks like it might well have been leftover from a Syfy original movie that shot there the week before.

Tackling her first leading role in a project of this size, Woodley can be wonderful when she’s allowed to show a bit of sass, but while she easily nails the film’s most emotional, actorly moments, her Tris hasn’t quite fully gelled as an autonomous character. Woodley’s “The Spectacular Now” co-star, Miles Teller, gets most of the film’s laughs as Tris’ antagonistic fellow initiate, while her friends played by Zoe Kravitz and Ben Lloyd-Hughes are left mostly spinning their wheels.

Though its largely handheld camerawork is always competent, the film displays an ungainly sort of beige sheen throughout: Backgrounds often appear washed-out and featureless, and actors’ faces sometimes display the lifeless aspect of overdone digital touchups. A trance-infused score by Junkie XL is appropriately youthful, while music supervisor Randall Poster has assembled a clever collection of indie rock, electronica and hip-hop.

Reviewed at AMC Century City 15, March 13, 2014. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 140 MIN.

• Production: A Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment release of a Summit Entertainment presentation of a Red Wagon Entertainment production. Produced by Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shahbazian. Executive producers, John J. Kelly, Rachel Shane. Co-producer, Veronica Roth.
• Crew: Directed by Neil Burger. Screenplay, Evan Daugherty, Vanessa Taylor, from the book by Veronica Roth. Camera (Deluxe color), Alwin Kuchler; editors, Richard Francis-Bruce, Nancy Richardson; music, Junkie XL; music supervisor, Randall Poster; production designer, Andy Nicholson; art director, Patrick Sullivan; set decorator, Anne Kuljian; costume designer, Carlo Poggiolo; sound (Dolby Digital/Datasat), David Obermeyer; supervising sound editors, Wylie Stateman, Harry Cohen; re-recording mixers, Mike Prestwood Smith, Michael Keller; special effects supervisor, Yves DeBono; senior visual effects supervisor, Jim Berney; visual effects, Method Studios, Scanline VFX, Soho VFX, Wormstyle, CoSA VFX, Lola VFX; stunt coordinator/second unit director, Garrett Warren; assistant directors, Vincent Lascoumes, Artist Robinson; second unit camera, Jake Polonsky, Paul Hughen; casting, Mary Vernieu, Venus Kanani.
• With: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Tony Goldwyn, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Mekhi Phifer, Kate Winslet.

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Divergent Reviews

Unfortunately, [director Neil Burger] succeeds despite the screenwriting by Vanessa Taylor and Evan Daugherty, and not because of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

There have been far more compelling metaphors for the trials of adolescence.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 15, 2022

This slick-looking, but shallow slice of sci-fi features a certain amount of Harry Potter-esque HufflePuff...

Full Review | Mar 8, 2022

Divergent is Hunger Games light, but Woodley and James bring some heat to the leads and it's fun watching Kate Winslet sneering her way through a villainous role.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 1, 2021

Falling victim to the same problem of many science-fiction or fantasy epic startups, the story is 90% introduction.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 4, 2020

It doesn't help that the music by Junkie XL is overwrought and dominating in the worst of ways.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 6, 2020

Despite a good lead performance, what we have is a glossy shell but not much underneath.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 21, 2020

It is glaringly obvious that the movie version of Divergent is influenced by the success and popularity of The Hunger Games and sadly this underwhelming film did not deliver.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 16, 2020

Bland, clunky, and lifeless.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 8, 2020

I was bored.

Full Review | Apr 27, 2020

It's like Hunger Games, meets Enders' Game, meets every YA book you've ever read.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2020

Divergent suffers in comparison to Hunger Games. But when judged alone, Divergent makes a strong case for the entertainment value of an empowered young female hero attempting to survive and resist in a dystopian society.

Full Review | Mar 11, 2020

A possibly compelling idea gets lost in the mire of trying to be appealing to a core audience that doesn't want to work hard for narrative reward.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2019

The film is more interesting than the average bad movie precisely because it so gratuitously, and even thematically, fails to fit together.

Full Review | Aug 28, 2019

This is a rite-of-passage film, with action, romance and self-realization woven in. But unlike some others of this genre, Divergent is thought-provoking teen sci-fi.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2019

Saved by Woodley and James' performances, Divergent has every trope a teenage fan could ask for, and not much else.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 17, 2019

Divergent is chock-full of holes, but Woodley and her bright band of co-stars try valiantly to save the day.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 3, 2019

The story is told in a much too clinical fashion.

Full Review | Mar 7, 2019

Divergent doesn't have the same mass appeal, but it doesn't make it any less impactful than the best that this genre - the science fiction genre, not the young adult subgenre - has to offer.

Full Review | Feb 5, 2019

While I can't recommend "Divergent" to anyone not already fans of the novels, I will say I'm interested in where this series goes.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2019

• Entertainment
• Movie Review

'Divergent' review

It's hard to stand out when you're exactly the same.

By Bryan Bishop on March 21, 2014 10:05 am 93 Comments

Young adult novels, and the movies they inspire, have all but taken over the notion of the futuristic sci-fi dystopia. Once the domain of Brazil and Blade Runner , the landscape has instead become home to sagas that use the background of an oppressive future to explore universal themes like the importance of individuality — with a love triangle or two thrown in for good measure. When the pieces come together just right, the result can be The Hunger Games , a series that reaches beyond younger audiences, becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process.

The latest stab at building a new YA film franchise is Divergent , based on Veronica Roth’s best-selling novel. At first glance the film checks all the right boxes, but despite some impressive visual world building and a strong lead performance it’s never able to find the groove it’s so clearly looking for.

In a vaguely defined future Chicago, society has broken itself down into five distinct factions based on personality types. When children turn 16, they take an aptitude test that tells them who they should be, and then in a formal ceremony they stand before an auditorium of friends and family and choose who they want to be. Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) is from Abnegation, a quiet, charity-minded sect, but when she takes her test, the results say she doesn’t fit into any of the ready-made categories. She’s what’s known as "divergent," and as you might expect, anybody that doesn’t slot into place is seen as an existential threat to society itself.

Renaming herself Tris, she sides with Dauntless — the group of warriors that protect Chicago. Through a series of tests and training she learns to embrace the fiercer aspects of her personality, all the while keeping her test results under cover. One of the factions has been quietly laying the groundwork for revolution, however, and Tris soon learns that the only way to save her family and the people of Chicago will be to reveal that she is divergent after all.

As a metaphor it’s about as subtle as an earthquake, but it works largely thanks to Woodley’s performance. The actress has been compared to Jennifer Lawrence for obvious reasons, and she’s able to pull off a similar mix of movie-star charisma and vulnerability — but Woodley’s Tris feels more like a real flesh-and-blood teenager than Katniss Everdeen ever has. Woodley gracefully navigates Tris’ transformation from supplicant to soldier, but problems arise in the plot-heavy second half of the film. While she remains the focal point, Tris is dramatically sidelined as nearly every major plot twist comes courtesy of coincidence or happy accidents. Other characters rush to tell her the latest plot detail; somebody appears from nowhere to save her in an action sequence; Tris discovers she can zip through a hallucinatory mental test just because it’s in her divergent nature. For a story that’s ostensibly about taking ownership of one’s own destiny, it’s just bizarre for a character to not have to try that hard to reach many of her goals.

The rest of the cast are given similarly difficult challenges — even Kate Winslet seems disengaged — though both Zoë Kravitz ( X-Men: First Class ) and Jai Courtney ( A Good Day To Die Hard ) are able to leave an impression as Dauntless team members. As Tris’ handler Four, Theo James serves as a passable foil for Woodley, but the movie’s awkward attempts at romance play more like parody for those that aren’t already invested in the relationship from the novel.

It’s the film’s biggest shortcoming: the inescapable sense that it was designed for lovers of the books rather than fresh audiences. Numerous scenes feel like they could be condensed or cut from the nearly two-and-a-half hour running time. Director Neil Burger ( The Illusionist ) crafts a beautiful world of sweeping futuristic buildings, but there’s no real sense of how this alternate world came to be. Class resentment is a major component of the film’s rising stakes, but as a plot device it seemingly pops up out of nowhere just as it’s needed. Granted, some of those are weaknesses in Roth’s novel, but an adaptation provides an opportunity to improve upon problems, not just repeat them.

With a passionate fan base in place, none of that will likely hurt Divergent at first, and with sequels already slated for 2015 and 2016 it seems we’ll be seeing more of Roth’s world. Of course, that was also the plan with The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones , a YA adaptation that had its sequel delayed after it failed to perform at the box office. Divergent sits in a better position, however, with a compelling hero securely in place and mistakes that can be fixed the next time around — should the filmmakers actually decide to fix them.

Divergent is now playing. Photos courtesy of Summit Entertainment.

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Common Sense Media Review

Strong female character leads in violent dystopia.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Divergent is the first adaptation of author Veronica Roth's best-selling dystopian trilogy. Set in a future Chicago, the movie is slightly less violent than the book but still depicts the brutal world of a post-apocalyptic society divided into factions or groups. People are…

Why Age 14+?

There is a less violence in the movie than in the book, but it's still a vio

In addition to a few longing looks, just one long passionate kiss (with the guy

A couple of uses of "bitch," "s--t," and "a--hole.&quo

In one scene it looks like some of the Dauntless are drinking, but it's not

Any Positive Content?

The lead character deals with important issues about identity and finding her pl

Tris sometimes doubts herself but taps into her courage and ingrained selflessne

Violence & Scariness

There is a less violence in the movie than in the book, but it's still a violent story. Several characters are shot at, injured, or killed including beloved parents. Teen siblings are orphaned by the end of the movie. The Dauntless faction of brave risk takers requires a brutal initiation that includes several scenes of bloody hand-to-hand combat (until someone can't get up any more), knife-throwing, marksmanship, and more. Characters are routinely sparring and injuring one another -- or entering fear simulations to deal with their greatest fears, whether it's wild animals, confined spaces, drowning, etc. A character commits suicide and his dead body is briefly shown. Three masked guys grab Tris, beat her up and nearly throw her to her death. Christina is forced to hang off of a ledge for a certain amount of time to atone for her cowardice. During a climactic sequence, drugged soldiers shoot and kill unarmed citizens.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

In addition to a few longing looks, just one long passionate kiss (with the guy shirtless), and some heartfelt embraces. During a fear simulation, Tris imagines Four kissing her on a bed and trying to convince her to have sex before she's ready, but she defends herself.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A couple of uses of "bitch," "s--t," and "a--hole." Other insults include "Stiff," "coward," "stupid," "loudmouth."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

In one scene it looks like some of the Dauntless are drinking, but it's not clear.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

The lead character deals with important issues about identity and finding her place in a controlling society. Tris and Four struggle with what it really means to be selfless, brave, smart, and kind, as they explore trusting their own beliefs rather than those imposed by the separatist government.

Positive Role Models

Tris sometimes doubts herself but taps into her courage and ingrained selflessness to protect others even when she doesn't realize it, like when she stands up for Al and takes a punishment for him. Four encourages Tris to use her upbringing's focus on selflessness to be even more courageous. Tris and Four offer a positive example of a teen relationship; they treat each other as equals, defend and protect each other, and go slow with their romance.

Parents need to know that Divergent is the first adaptation of author Veronica Roth's best-selling dystopian trilogy . Set in a future Chicago, the movie is slightly less violent than the book but still depicts the brutal world of a post-apocalyptic society divided into factions or groups. People are killed, orphaned, injured, and thoroughly beat up in bloody hand-to-hand combat (including guy-on-girl fist fights), violent bullying, an armed occupation, and mass killings of unarmed people. There's a central romance, but it remains fairly chaste -- only some longing looks, embraces and one extended, passionate kiss. The movie features a brave, vulnerable, and fierce female main character. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (38)
• Kids say (298)

Based on 38 parent reviews

A page turner that is a bit too steamy

A great film - possibly suitable for your younger kids, if they have the attention span, what's the story.

In the distant future, Chicago is cut off from the rest of America in a society strictly divided into five factions based on character traits -- Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the kind), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice "Tris" Prior ( Shailene Woodley ) is a 16-year-old Abnegation-born teen whose government-sponsored personality test reveals she is DIVERGENT-- meaning she doesn't fit into just one faction. After choosing to join Dauntless, Tris must survive a brutal (and bloody) initiation process under the tutelage of her handsome, mysterious instructor Four ( Theo James ). Together they discover that the Erudite, led by Jeanine Matthews ( Kate Winslet ), plan to kill all Divergents and take control of the government -- unless Tris and Four can stop them.

Is It Any Good?

The movie adaptation of the popular YA series benefits from a talented cast, a spot-on visual depiction of the factions, the Dauntless Pit, and the story's urban Chicago setting. The acting ensemble is as good as the cast of The Hunger Games and vastly superior to that of Twilight and the forgettable Vampire Academy and Mortal Instruments adaptations . While Woodley doesn't fit the canon description of Tris, she captures the character's mix of vulnerability and courage, her desire to be independent in a world that demands conformity. And although heartthrob Theo James is almost too manly looking for Woodley's doe-eyed ingenue, he definitely gets the job done as the intensely serious Four.

But the movie doesn't live up to the hype or the potential of the written series. The Dauntless initiation process isn't as violent or emotional on the screen as it is on the page, and neither is the buildup of the Tris and Four romance or Tris' friendship with her fellow transfer initiates. Considering the two-and-a-half-hour runtime, there are parts that drag on and yet aspects of the book that seem surprisingly cut. The performances (Winslet is fabulous as the icy Erudite leader, and Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, and Jai Courtney are all true to the spirit of their characters) make up for some of the pacing and screenwriting issues, but overall this adaptation falls short of fan expectations. Still, tweens and teens who've read the books should absolutely see the movies and hope the second and third installments fare better.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the popularity of violent dystopian stories aimed at teenagers. What purpose does the violence serve in Divergent ? Is it different to see violence rather than to read about it? How does the violence in the book compare to the movie?

How does Tris compare to other female protagonists in young adult books and movies? What are her views on love, family, and relationships? Does she have the qualities of a role model?

Discuss the central romance between Tris and Four. Were you surprised at how slowly it progressed? What messages about love and sex does the film communicate?

Fans of the book: Was the movie a faithful adaptation? What differences did you like, which scenes from the book did you miss?

How do the characters in Divergent demonstrate courage ? Why is this an important character strength?

Movie Details

• In theaters : March 21, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : August 5, 2014
• Cast : Shailene Woodley , Theo James , Kate Winslet
• Director : Neil Burger
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Summit Entertainment
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Book Characters , Great Girl Role Models
• Character Strengths : Courage
• Run time : 143 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense violence and action, thematic elements and some sensuality
• Last updated : July 31, 2024

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Divergent (2014)

• User Reviews
• o - o - o -
• the relationship between the two leads develops naturally i.e. they don't see each other and go 'you're my soulmate', in fact they don't really get on at first so this is believable and refreshing
• the lead actress (Shailene Woodley) playing Tris is extremely natural and one of a very few actors I've ever seen who has convinced me that they are grieving (usually grief in films is just 'oh, they're dead, I'm so upset' ... swiftly moves on with their day..) - Actually both of the leads (Theo James as well) play their roles really well
• I loved the point of view shots like when Tris looks at Four during the training and you see it from his perspective and then the camera cuts to his face to get his reaction to the look she gives him (there are other similar scenes) and it just adds to the effect of feeling like these are real people and I empathised with them more as a result
• Yeah the background story for the city is quite thin but who cares, stranger things have happened in the real world and what I like is that we're given a sense of 'this is what they've been told but is that what's really happened?'. I'm not sure if that's in the book or if the film makers wanted to add some realism for us grown-ups but when they question what's out there, I got the feeling this might be similar to The Island (2005) - that's not a spoiler it's just my opinion and probably totally off base

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The Correct Order To Watch The Divergent Movies

This post contains spoilers for the "Divergent" trilogy.

The "chosen one" trope is a staple of young adult fare, through some franchises have made an effort to subvert it. For instance, "The Hunger Games" protagonist Katniss Everdeen is meant to embody the Mockingjay throughout "The Hunger Games" series , but she consistently detests being used as a revolutionary symbol for political propaganda. A similarly subversive figure emerges in Veronica Roth's "Divergent" book series, where Beatrice "Tris" Prior is initially presented as an anomaly within the system — with facets of the "chosen one" formula guiding her arc — only to be revealed as just one of many such anomalies. What really makes her stand out is being brave enough to challenge the status quo.

When director Neil Burger's adaptation of Roth's first book, "Divergent," was released in 2014, the film received mixed reviews from critics but did pretty well at the box office. Shailene Woodley's Tris felt fleshed out enough to ground the adaptation, which takes a rather bland approach to the source material. "Divergent" was followed by two sequels, "Insurgent" and "Allegiant," but the decision to split the third novel into two movies ultimately doomed the series and robbed it of a proper ending.

Although the watch order for the "Divergent" trilogy is pretty straightforward, it is worth looking at the missed opportunities that each entry should have capitalized on, and what the fourth canceled "Divergent" film ("Ascendant") might have added to the chronology of this dystopian tale. Without further ado, let us venture into a world ruled by factions, where expressing individuality is the greatest sin, but experiencing a crisis of identity is an even greater crime.

The Divergent story starts with (you guessed it!) Divergent

Start with 2014's "Divergent," which introduces us to post-apocalyptic Chicago. The aftermath of an unexplained war has led to the creation of five factions, which function as social indicators of personal and collective identity. Abnegation is for the selfless, who live monastic lives removed from capitalistic overindulgence, Erudite is for those who value knowledge and pioneer scientific progress, and Candor is for those who value the truth above all else. If someone chooses Amity, they value peace and favor political neutrality, while the Dauntless are described as fearless and are officially in charge of the city's security. Tris is forced to navigate these rather limiting factions as a rogue cog who refuses to fit into the machine, and her Divergent status puts her in immense danger.

There are some intriguing aspects to "Divergent" that could have been explored in the sequels to great effect, such as the direct correlation between state-led surveillance and societal identity. Although Tris is our lens for navigating this world, her field of vision beyond the first "Divergent" film feels extremely limited and is rarely invested with the fleeting depth that the novel series builds its foundation on. The inability to fit into boxed categories results in complete societal exclusion — leading to the factionless being exempted from integration — but the adaptations do not dwell on this aspect well enough, if at all. The "Divergent" films also missed out on the opportunity to improve upon Roth's sketchy worldbuilding in the books.

Insurgent is the second Divergent movie, Allegiant is the third

After watching "Divergent," move on to "Insurgent," which explores the aftermath of the coup and sees Tris in graver danger as the government declares Divergents to be societal threats who need to be eradicated. Tris is not the only Divergent, of course; Tobias/Four (Theo James) is also one, hinting at a deeper conspiracy behind a system so obsessed with erasing individuality but hell-bent on defining the human spectrum with only one overarching quality. Although parts of "Insurgent" sag under the weight of an overstuffed script, it feels more profound than its predecessor, as it does the legwork to competently grapple with some of its core themes. As bare minimum as that sounds, it is undoubtedly better than "Allegiant," the next and final destination of this watch order.

The first issue with "Allegiant" is that it only tells half a story due the book being split into two planned movies. However, the real reason why "Allegiant" officially put an end to the franchise lies in its noticeable drop in quality. The convoluted nature of the story emerges as neither visually arresting nor thematically entertaining enough for audiences to even bother with what happens next. The canceled film, "Ascendant," intended to explore Tris' attempt to expose a horrifying genetic experiment, which eventually leads to her death. This marks a turning point in Tobias' arc, and the advent of a new future thanks to Tris' sacrifice.

Had "Allegiant" incorporated the entirety of the novel's arc in its final installment, the film wouldn't have ended on a cliffhanger, but there is some comfort in knowing that we're probably not missing out on much. After all, there is no dearth of better YA adaptations that explore growing pains and fissures within personal identity. 

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Beauty & the beast's belle becomes a winter princess in stunningly detailed disney cosplay, tom cruise's aerial fight in top gun: maverick ending underwhelms real fight pilot, divergent, falls somewhere in a middle ground between high points of the hunger games and the low points of the twilight saga..

Divergent   takes place in a future Chicago that exists in the era after a great war. In order to avoid the pitfalls of the former world, the new society is divided into five factions: Candor (outspoken opinionated types suited for legality and politics), Erudite (the brainiacs who love knowledge and logic), Dauntless (brave risk-takers used for policing and military service), Amity (peaceful hippie-type farmers), and Abnegation (Amish-style simple folk who are the only ones trusted to hold public office). At age sixteen, each citizen is given an aptitude test meant to reveal their personality, and soon after, he or she must freely decided for themselves which faction they will join for life. "Faction before blood," as the old adage goes...

The twist comes when young Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) takes her aptitude test and discovers that she is "divergent" - i.e., part of an anomalous percentage of people who don't fit into any of the five factions. Beatrice is warned that divergence is a death sentence, so she reinvents herself as "Tris," a fearless and spirited member of Dauntless faction. However, before being accepted as a Dauntless warrior Tris has to contend with harsh instructors like Four (Theo James) and Eric (Jai Courtney), and jealous fellow recruits like Peter (Miles Teller) - all while protecting the secret of her divergence at all costs.

Directed by Neil Burger ( Limitless, The Illusionist ) and based on the young adult book series by Veronica Roth,  Divergent  presents an interesting sci-fi world and premise by way of an interesting main character - but unfortunately, those positives are weighted down by the usual negatives associated with modern YA genre films: namely, thin writing and cheesy teen romance.

Burger is best known as a director (some might say underdog) whose films create solid and immersive cinematic experiences with nice flourishes - even if his overall style as a director often fails to wow.  Divergent  pretty much falls in step with the trend of Burger's other films - a solid realization that has some nice flourishes, but never fully achieves an awe-inspiring cinematic experience.

The future world of Roth's novel looks interesting onscreen, but often the set pieces are something you could see in a sci-fi television show, and many of the attempts at more cinematic visual flair fall flat - as in, flat on the unconvincing green screens and poorly rendered CGI objects that are the standard of this film. Despite those (budgetary) shortcomings, however, Burger's small stylistic flourishes do make many of the surreal moments of the film interesting (the fear test sequences), and generally sell the world the film is attempting to create. In other words: a solid director does a solid job.

Having never read the novel myself, I can't know how well writers Evan Daughterty ( Snow White and the Huntsman ) and Vanessa Taylor ( Game of Thrones ) did with adapting the book for the screen - but knowing the basic summary of the story, I can say that many of the problems in  Divergent  likely originate at the source. The good parts of the story rest with the premise, the protagonist, and the overall themes about self-identity and defying conformity in favor of individuality. Luckily, those ripe elements of the story are what constitute the first two acts of the film, as Tris finds her faction and navigates the rough training regiment of Dauntless.

Where things go awry is (as per usual for this genre) when the teen romance subplot sucks momentum out of what was a more engaging and interesting story - but that's not to take away from lead actors Shailene Woodley ( The Descendants ) and Theo James ( Underworld: Awakening ). She's cute, feisty and smart, he's tall charming and handsome; the pair create an understated, slow-burn flirtatious chemistry that really carries the character moments of the film.

However, when Tris and Four inevitably go all doe-eyed for one another, it's pretty much a derailment of everything the film was doing up to that point. Gone is the story of an independent young woman's journey of self-discovery and empowerment, and here again is the insipid YA cliche where kissing the boy solves all the problems. (The last scene in the film is especially ridiculous in this regard.)

Aside from Jai Courtney ( A Good Day to Die Hard ) once again adding some flavor as abusive drill sergeant, Eric, the supporting cast (which includes Maggie Q, Ashley Judd, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Tony Goldwyn and Mekhi Phifer) is pretty much a misuse of some good talent. The supporting characters are either flat, cliched or undeveloped during the course of the film - and yes, I know, the book probably explains them in greater detail. But the film does not. Kate Winslet and Ashley Judd do good work with their roles as the cold leader of Erudite and Tris' mother, respectively. But don't count on those accomplished actresses to have much screen time.

In the end, Divergent , falls somewhere in a middle ground between high points of  The Hunger Games  and the low points of  The Twilight Saga . It's not dead on arrival (see:  The Mortal Instruments ), but it's too close to call whether or not many viewers (beyond the built-in fanbase) will leave the theater eager for the next chapter in Tris' path to self-discovery... and boys.

[poll id="777"]

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Divergent   is now playing in theaters. It is 139 minutes long and is Rated PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements and some sensuality.

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Based on the young adult "The Divergent Series" novels, Divergent is the first film in the franchise that follows a girl named Beatrice Prior, who lives on the fringes of society in a dystopian world. Set to join one of the five factions humans are separated into based on their virtues, Beatrice learns that she is considered a "Divergent," an independent thinker that she fits into none of the factions. Forced to conceal the truth, Beatrice joins the thrill-seeking Dauntless faction in secret, setting her on a path that will change the world.

• Movie Reviews
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Divergent Review

04 Apr 2014

139 minutes

In the post-apocalyptic future of the Veronica Roth novel adapted here, the question, "What is your greatest strength?" is no longer a job interview stumper but the basis of an entire society. Five factions - Abnegation, Candour, Amity, Dauntless and Erudite (consistent grammar apparently died with civilisation) now comprise the population, and this compulsory segregation is designed somehow to promote peace, despite an almost immediate sense that these groups are poised for conflict. It's a set-up more successful as a philosophy class hypothetical than a dramatic premise, but director Neil Burger does a good job of papering over cracks that could have ruined his character study.

Our heroine is Shailene Woodley's Tris, born in the Amish-like Abnegation faction to selflessly serve others but who, we learn from voiceover, doesn't quite fit in. It turns out that that she is 'Divergent', with an aptitude for three factions. This is portrayed like a superpower, with Tris able to solve problems that stump her faction mates, but it makes her a threat to the carefully ordered system.

Tris soon joins the Dauntless, a group characterised by high-tech sportswear, a penchant for whooping and a habit of jumping from fast objects and high buildings. There she makes new friends, including hunky trainer Four (Theo James), and the film's second act becomes a lengthy and violent training montage. But while Tris faces a growing chance of discovery by scary Erudite leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet on the sort of stern form that suggests she's the natural heir to Judi Dench), trouble is brewing on a larger scale.

If you're getting shades of The Hunger Games from all this the filmmakers will be thrilled, because they're all-too-obviously trying to launch a similar franchise with a tough heroine, solid action sequences and a world that might credibly be shaken by a teenager. But while the dystopian, stratified societies are superficially similar, Divergent has none of the cod-Roman familiarity of The Hunger Games. There's more training than action - much of the film is concerned with Tris' quest to move up her class rankings rather than grand questions of politics - and on small human dramas Tris must negotiate. The location, the real Chicago playing its digitally ruined self, gives it a scale it might otherwise lack, even if the visuals are highly reminiscent of I Am Legend.

The film's great strength is its cast, and Woodley in particular. Her attempts to negotiate the pressures of friends, family and her own nature are understated and credible even when she faces fantastical challenges, and like Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games she convinces as an action heroine. James stays just the right side of brooding as the male lead, and more established actors - Winslet, Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn as Tris' parents, Ray Stevenson as the Abnegation leader and Maggie Q as, essentially, Basil Exposition - earn their day's pay in the smaller supporting roles. Whether they will all get the sequel that it begs for remains to be seen, but purely as a first chapter to something larger it's an entertaining start.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

At the risk of alienating young-adult hearts, the faithful but dramatically flat film version of Divergent , from Veronica Roth’s 2011 bestseller, couldn’t stir palpitations in shut-ins. It’s that bland and lifeless. Odd for a story about rebellious youth in a dystopian future Chicago. Roth, just 22 when Divergent was published, rushed out two follow-up novels, Insurgent and Allegiant . A baldfaced attempt to cash in on the success of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy? You be the judge. The plots – two lovers fight to stay alive in a cruel, controlling society – are virtually identical. At least The Hunger Games spawned two terrific movies and a breakthrough star in Jennifer Lawrence. Onscreen, Divergent ignites only indifference.

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I’m surprised. Shailene Woodley, a spirited actress in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now , seems an ideal choice to play Beatrice Prior, the 16-year-old heroine who must choose her place in a stacked-deck society. Theo James, the Brit actor who played the Turk who died scandalously in Lady Mary’s bed on Downton Abbey , is a tall drink of glowering sexuality as Four, her partner in dangerous personality traits. They needed to generate a sizzling chemistry onscreen. It’s not there. Nada.

I had hopes for director Neil Burger; he made magic with The Illusionist . But he can’t perk up a stultifying script by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor that hews to the surface of the book while jettisoning its daring. The teens in Chicago must choose a faction to define them – Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. Beware divergents like Four and Tris (see how she jazzed up her name). But except for Kate Winslet’s fearsome turn as a villain, the only terror Divergent roused in me was that the drag-ass thing would never end. Sorry, I’m a Candor.

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Movie Review: Divergent (2014)

• Movie Reviews
• 16 responses
• --> March 23, 2014

Facing fears.

I grew up in a time when young adult books were found in the children’s section of the bookstore and were simply fluff used to keep me quiet on long road trips. In recent years, though, young adult literature has found some serious strength, and the chances of finding a quality story are much better than they used to be. Hollywood has latched onto this pattern, putting out a steady diet of titles in recent years. At first they struck gold with stories driven by fantasy (“Harry Potter” and “ Twilight ”) and are now seeing success with adapting dystopian sagas to the screen like “ The Hunger Games ” and “ Ender’s Game .” The latest (and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading) is Veronica Roth’s Divergent .

Divergent opens with a voiceover by Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley, “ The Spectacular Now “), a young girl who has grown up in a time after a great war in what was once Chicago. She tells us that society has found a new way to survive and everyone is divided into five factions, each named for the dominant characteristic of its people: Amity — those who are peaceful; Candor — those who are truthful; Erudite — those who seek knowledge; Dauntless — those who are brave; and Abnegation — those who are selfless. Beatrice and her family live in Abnegation, the faction that governs the rest of society. Being a selfless people, they are most trusted with guiding policy towards what is best for everyone.

Each year, 16-year-olds take an aptitude test that identifies their dominant characteristic and will help them decide which faction to choose. After all, as Erudite leader Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet, “ Contagion “) tells them, “The future belongs to those who know where they belong.” Beatrice takes her test, but her results are inconclusive — instead of just one dominant characteristic, three emerge. Beatrice is Divergent, and in this society that is considered extremely dangerous (the thought is if you don’t fit into a category, you can’t be controlled). Knowing this, her test administrator, Dauntless faction member Tori (Maggie Q, “ Priest “), rushes her out of the room telling Beatrice she is in danger and must hide her results. Her best bet is to stay in Abnegation, but Beatrice, fascinated by their fearlessness, chooses instead to join Tori in Dauntless. Breaking free from expectation she takes on the new identity of Tris, and readies herself to endure the intense physical and mental training ahead.

Using determination to succeed where her physical weakness often fails her, she begins climbing the rankings, catching the attention of her trainers. Eric (Jai Courtney, “ A Good Day to Die Hard “) playing the “bad cop,” is determined to break her and all of the new faction members (in one particularly intense “mental” exercise, he tosses Christina (Zoë Kravitz, “ X-Men: First Class “) over the side of bridge, “teaching” her to hold on and to never give up). Four (Theo James, “ Underworld: Awakening “) is the “good cop,” verbally emphasizing courage and strength, and gives Tris pointers in how she can defeat her opponents in sparring matches.

But as she grows stronger, word of dissention grows — it is said that the Erudite want to overthrow Abnegation for control of the government. This prospect raises concerns for Tris: Her parents (Tony Goldwyn, “ The Mechanic ” and Ashley Judd, “ Olympus Has Fallen ”) remain in Abnegation and her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort, “ Carrie ”) is a new Erudite initiate.

Combat training.

While Veronica Roth’s Divergent is the start to an exciting saga, Neil Burger’s Divergent misses the mark. He and the screenwriting duo of Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor represent the five different factions and present a dystopian Chicago (especially the Choosing Ceremony) correctly, but the characters are not nearly dynamic enough. A film that focuses on introducing a situation for later films rather than delivering action (as this one clearly is) needs quality characters to evoke emotion from us. Unfortunately, Divergent spends too much time developing characters who don’t jump off the screen the way they jump off the page.

Shailene Woodley, as talented an actress as she is, doesn’t come across as a very believable action heroine. At all. Theo James’ Four, who refused appointment as Dauntless leadership, seems more talented in staring intensely at Tris than actually pushing initiates to become stronger. That being said, James’ chemistry with Woodley is undeniable — at least as evidenced by the happy sighs from the teenage girls with whom I saw the film. Eric is too much of a caricature of the tough-guy trainer who pushes too hard; yes, he’s a villain, but unlike in the novel, he’s barely more than a stereotype here. Most disappointing, however, is Kate Winslet’s Jeanine (whose role is amplified here in a similar fashion to Donald Sutherland’s amplified role of President Snow in “The Hunger Games”). She’s rather bland and she’s just not as threatening or diabolical as she needs to be.

Although Divergent didn’t deliver as it should’ve, I’m not ready to cast aside the series (or the genre) yet. There is time to reclaim the story and build the characters further for the more intense “Insurgent” due in 2015. Until then, I cautiously look forward to the adaptation of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner in the fall.

Tagged: dystopia , novel adaptation , teenager

School teacher by day. Horror aficionado by night.

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'Movie Review: Divergent (2014)' have 16 comments

March 23, 2014 @ 1:24 pm Stenton

Shailene Woodley isn’t just bland she is blank. She is Kristen Stewart 2.0.

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March 23, 2014 @ 1:41 pm Longevity

Slow and clumsy is the only way to describe the film.

March 23, 2014 @ 2:02 pm Amplified Wonder

I thought the confrontation at the end needed more intensity but overall it was good enough introduction for me to want to see the trilogy through to the end.

March 23, 2014 @ 8:34 pm Meat is Tastey

Whether or not the story continues the ending to this was awful. It was the textbook definition of anticlimactic. And the reviewer is right, Kate Winslet is sorrily underused or underplayed.

March 23, 2014 @ 2:13 pm Sharepoint

Seemed like a lot of translation from the book was missed.

March 23, 2014 @ 3:38 pm 2Legit

No it’s faithful to the book. It just so happens that this book trilogy sucks something awful.

March 23, 2014 @ 2:45 pm Biff

The Hunger Games is all the YA I can handle.

March 24, 2014 @ 7:56 am johnrgoodall

lucky for you the muppets are around the corner

March 23, 2014 @ 2:52 pm Marty

Do all young girls like such tripe? This was a horror to sit through.

March 23, 2014 @ 3:18 pm Rob G

I will never, never ever see this movie

March 23, 2014 @ 5:26 pm Hearse

Oh my goodness, society is going to collapse because someone exhibits several personality traits. What an incredibly shallow and stupid concept. Shame it is going to make $500M in worldwide ticket sales.

March 23, 2014 @ 5:55 pm XCLUSIVE

As everyone plays as if theyre dead, I thought this made for a good zombie flick.

March 23, 2014 @ 10:15 pm Cronic

It wasn’t very good. It had some potential but it was clear it was produced with the sole purpose of putting as little into it so as to get the most returns out of it.

March 24, 2014 @ 10:28 am Cyndi

I liked it so much. I can’t wait to see Shailene Woodley heroine blossom farther in Insurgent.

March 24, 2014 @ 2:48 pm In a shadow

Stay in school, Cyndi.

March 24, 2014 @ 11:39 pm DHowell

If you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. There are but only so many ways you can spin this crap/

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The story of Divergent celebrates bravery, compassion, and above all, accepting an emotional complexity that goes beyond a single characteristic.  Unfortunately, Neil Burger 's adaptation of Veronica Roth 's best-selling novel is constantly softening that emotional complexity or dodging it altogether.  The director is more focused on recreating the world of the novel, but rarely does he concern himself with fleshing it out and making the character relationships more than superficial.  The result is a staggeringly safe picture in what's supposed to be a dangerous setting.

Set a dystopian, post-war Chicago, citizens are divided into five factions, each one emphasizing a particular personality trait: Abnegation (selflessness), Amity (kindness), Erudite (intelligence), Candor (honesty), and Dauntless (bravery).  Each one is assigned certain jobs, e.g. Abnegation runs the government because they're public servants, Erudite handles science, Dauntless are the soldiers, etc.  Every citizen must choose their faction on their 16th birthday, and are given a test to see, which faction suits them best.  When Abnegation citizen Beatrice Prior ( Shailene Woodley ) takes the test, she comes up as "Divergent", which she has to hide because it will make her a target for some mysterious reason.  She decides to reject her family, chooses Dauntless, renames herself "Tris," and finds her initiation exhilarating, but discovers that there could be larger conflict brewing between Erudite and Abnegation.

It's a rich, interesting world, but Burger makes a bizarre choice in how to capture it.  He seems enamored with the big, empty, dilapidated Chicago, and the living quarters of the factions.  This sometimes results in clever touches like how Beatrice's Abnegation family eats dinner around a single, tiny light bulb.  But for the most part, he chooses to go with wide, open shots, which is strange considering that the story is about how factions constrain and divide citizens.  Perhaps it's supposed to be juxtaposition, but the approach fails because it doesn't help us get a sense of Tris' feelings.

We're also kept mostly at arms' length from her relationships.  With the exception of her love-interest/instructor Four ( Theo James ), there's not much depth between Tris and her stock friends and foes.  There's the spunky friend Christina ( Zoe Kravitz ), the asshole rival Peter ( Miles Teller ), and the brutal instructor Eric ( Jai Courtney ).  Fellow initiates Will ( Ben Lloyd-Hughes ) and Al ( Christian Madsen ) barely exist, and the movie doesn't have to be this way.  While there's a lot of story to get through, Burger manages to find depth and connection between Four and Tris through brief shots of their incidental touches, and its disappointing that he doesn't apply those kind of touches to the other relationships.  It's mostly up to the actors, and while Woodley is good and has strong chemistry with James, she also makes some strange choices.

I've become a big fan of Woodley from her work in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now , but she has a difficult time managing Tris' balance between her Abnegation and Dauntless personalities.  There are moments when her eyes well with tears, but the character should be strong, and there are moments where she gets steely, but the scene calls for tenderness.  She plays both emotions well, but they're deployed at odd moments.  She's a good actress, but she and the film can't hit the emotional depth the story requires.

Tris is a member of Dauntless—a faction that requires toughness, attitude, and a willingness to court death.  But in Burger's adaptation, they're not even willing to embrace much in the way of pain.  Their piercings are moderate (Eric has an eyebrow stud…Oooh!) and even their tattoos are easy.  Instead of using a needle—you know, the thing that's supposed to hurt—they just use a little patch that sprays on the tattoo.  When the initiates fight in the ring, it's a lot of feinting and maybe a bruise.  The movie requires a PG-13, but Burger could have gone a lot harder and still gotten it.  There are a few moments where the movie does find some real darkness (especially when it shows one of Tris' fears), but for the most part, it uses kid gloves.  I don't think making a movie gritty automatically makes it better, but that attitude is inherent in Dauntless.  And yet it doesn't manifest itself on screen.

Perhaps Divergent 's problem is that it's running so fast to get through a lot of story that it misses the details that could make it come alive and the plot points that could help it make sense.  Shortcuts are necessary and some aspects of the book obviously need to be excised, but adapting as much of the plot as possible is worthless if we don't care about the characters in it.  Sometimes we get enough like Tris and Four's relationship, or a clever, snide remark from Peter (Teller is a scene stealer), but these are only hints of a much richer, more daring narrative.

Late in the movie, Tris says, "Be brave."  Burger should have followed her advice.

• Neil Burger
• Zoë Kravitz

‘Divergent’ (2014) Movie Review

By Brad Brevet

I can understand there is a target audience for Divergent . I also expect Veronica Roth ‘s novel from which it’s based isn’t nearly as awful as its theatrical adaptation, but let’s get one thing absolutely straight… Divergent is terrible. There’s really no way of getting around it.

I’m sure Roth’s readers were able to make sense of the world she created on the page. A world in which a human society in a dystopic future has quarantined themselves from the outside world and divided into factions based on their personality types. I’m sure those same readers will find it easier to digest what is on the screen based on their familiarity with the source material. However, I don’t want anyone pretending this movie offers up an explanation for what’s taking place that makes sense in any way, shape or form.

Divergent centers on Beatrice Prior, played by Shailene Woodley whom I would like to say at the outset gives what may be the absolute best performance I’ve ever seen from someone working with such shitty material. Screenwriters Evan Daugherty ( Snow White and the Huntsman as well as the upcoming G.I. Joe 3 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ) and Vanessa Taylor (“Game of Thrones”) stumble their way through setting up the story and never find their footing, introducing one awful character after the next.

The film opens with Beatrice explaining how this society works as the camera moves in and out of what we’re told is Chicago. Beatrice and her family belong to the Abnegation faction, which means they are selfless, giving and charitable. The Abnegation faction, due to their selfless nature, also run the government. As for the other factions we have Amity, they are farmers; Candor, they are honest and most often lawyers; Dauntless, they are brave, parkour, West Side Story re-enactors (sans the snapping and singing) that love climbing and jumping; and Erudite, they are the smart ones that sit around typing on computers all day and just being all smart and whatnot. Oh, and then there are the factionless, which is this society’s equivalent to homeless people. I know! Ehhhhhhh, amirite?

Given this is the reality of the world the film lives in you’re ready to accept it in an effort to see where it’s all going. However, I found it impossible to understand a society that not only divides its people into factions based on one character trait, but the people within said factions do nothing but live their life according to that trait without exception.

As far as this movie is concerned, the Abnegation faction does nothing, nothing but charitable work; the Amity just farm from dawn to dusk, sleep and do it all over again the next day; the Erudites sit around being smart and bitching about how they aren’t running things and then we soon spend most of our time with the Dauntless faction, which is basically a bunch of knuckleheads punching each other, living in what I can only compare to Zion from The Matrix .

Beatrice becomes our focal point because in this society on your 16th birthday you must choose which faction you will belong to, sort of like the sorting hat in Harry Potter . You can choose the faction you were born to or choose to defect to another faction, but once you’ve made your choice, that’s it! There’s no going back. You can go see your family, but even that’s frowned upon.

Before choosing their faction, each teen is tested to see what faction they are best suited for, which is where Beatrice learns she has no one dominant trait. Yes, feel free to gasp. Beatrice isn’t a robot that wants to only farm, do charity work or climb Ferris wheels. There is more to her, almost like a real human being. The irony of this is that it’s called being Divergent and being Divergent is not good. Why? Because “they” said so and “they” will hunt you down and kill you. Who is they? Good question, we can assume it’s the Erudites, but considering the Abnegation faction makes the rules, the Amity faction upholds the rules and Dauntless serve as protectors, it’s hard to understand just how anyone could get away with killing people just because they have more than one character trait.

Of course, the answer people that have read the book will give you is to say, “Divergents can’t be controlled.” Problem is, I can’t understand who is doing the controlling or why they are allowed to do the controlling. It makes absolutely zero sense and by the time we get around to hour two I was hoping the end would reveal this was a remake of M. Night Shyamalan ‘s The Village and all these people were just living in a strange stupid society with dumb rules, because some idiot set it up that way. Unfortunately, we don’t even get that much information as the film closes and we realize this isn’t about telling a story, it’s about twists and surprises yet to come. With any luck the already-planned sequels won’t happen, but this is Hollywood, an industry that thrives on our bad luck as Insurgent is already in the offing.

As I said, Woodley does what she can with the material and Theo James also does a decent job with what he has to work with as Beatrice’s inevitable love interest after she defects from Abnegation and heads to the Dauntless faction. One performance, however, cannot be forgiven, that being Jai Courtney as one of the film’s antagonists, a Dauntless leader named Eric.

Here’s a tip when it comes to creating villains in your stories — they’re one and only character trait can’t be that they are an ass hole. Eric, is an ass hole. Nothing more, nothing less. He shows up, he’s an ass hole and he keeps that going throughout the entire feature to the point you’re dreading his involvement in any future scenes and Courtney proves once again his interpretation of acting is mean-mugging the camera. Though, to be fair, he’s hardly given a chance with such a poorly developed character.

Director Neil Burger ( The Illusionist , Limitless ) is equally complicit, relying heavily on redundant scenes and shots of Woodley training to fight with a strange, “Whack-a-Mole” attack, not to mention some of the worst action scenes I have ever seen in a major motion picture. There’s a point a character is given the chance to cry over a dead body for a solid minute before the enemy decides enough is enough and it’s time to start shooting again… but only at the wall near her. You know, so she can get away, a cliched narrative technique this film isn’t ashamed of abusing over and over again.

I can see how, as a book, this story might have worked as I imagine the characters weren’t so thinly drawn and given more to do and talk about than what is required of them by the faction they’ve chosen. But that doesn’t mean anything for the movie.

I’m sure Divergent will end up being a success and pop culture will glom onto that success and each new film will be bigger than the last, but if movies of this quality are all we have to offer the young adult, target audience then there is little else we can do but sigh and pretend it never even happened.

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Divergent is the first film in a planned trilogy based on the works of author Veronica Roth. Summit, the same studio that produced Twilight and The Hunger Games, is betting their latest young adult adaptation will be equally as successful. They may have a winner at the box office, but have failed utterly to make a compelling film. Divergent is a pedantic snoozer that rehashes every futuristic dystopian theme. It was a struggle to sit through two and a half hours of entirely predictable tweener angst. I can only guess that the novel was more engaging because the movie is a dud.

Shailene Woodley stars as Beatrice, a girl coming of age in future Chicago. The prologue states that society has been reformed into five factions after an apocalyptic war. Abnegation are the selfless, and deemed to rule because of their benevolence. Dauntless are the brave warrior class that protects. Candor are the honest that judge. Amity are the peaceful that farm. And finally Erudite are the intelligent that make the laws. Beatrice's parents (Ashley Judd and Tony Goldywn) are leaders of Abnegation and important council members. On their eighteenth birthday, the youth are given a test to place them in their faction. Regardless of the test result, they can choose what faction to join in a ceremony. But there are a few that exhibit no traits for any faction during the test and are considered divergent. These factionless people have no place in society and are deemed threats to the system.

Needless to say, Beatrice is divergent. Her tester (Maggie Q) covers up the results of the examination and warns her to be careful. Beatrice shocks her parents and chooses to be Dauntless. She changes her name to Tris, and embarks on the brutal Dauntless training regime. At first she struggles with physical violence, but uses her intellect to better her classmates. Her instructor, Four (Theo James), begins to notice her different reactions to the tests. He takes her under his wing and a romance develops. They both notice that Dauntless and the Erudites are engaged in a conspiracy, with the icy Erudite leader - Jeanine (Kate Winslet); calling the shots.

Divergent has many problems, but Shailene Woodley is not one of them. It is rare for a film to fail with a decent performance from the lead. Woodley is fine as Tris. She plays the character well, a curious teenager that finds the strength to be heroic. I wish that alone could have propped up Divergent , but it does not. Divergent is very slow. The film plods along at a snail pace. The plot is banal and obvious. Everything unveils as expected without a whiff of surprise or nuance. The baddies are entirely predictable with the big conspiracy being spectacularly obvious. It would be helped if the action, special effects, or production design was engaging. Unfortunately that's not the case and it makes Divergent a boring film.

Neil Burger has had success as a director. I enjoyed his previous films, The Illusionist and Limitless. He strikes out here with Divergent . Burger has essentially made an uninteresting film. Audiences have seen teens rebel against dystopia. Divergent needed more across the board to grab you. Thankfully Woodley holds her own or it would have been a total disaster. There are also some truck sized holes in the plot, but I won't quibble because I'm not sure it would have made a real difference to the entertainment value. Let's hope the inevitable sequel is better.

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