Reviews

1 Review
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
Divergent (2014)
5/10
Is this what has become of writing?
14 April 2014
The thoughts going through my head during the majority of this movie was: "Has this really been published as a book?" and "This seems like something I could write". And I just don't tell myself that, it actually seems vaguely similar to something I wrote years ago on an exam.

Welcome to a world where all the guys look strangely familiar and have forgettable names. Apparently there has been some sort of war that almost wiped out humanity. A small part of the population has however managed to seal Chicago off. The founding fathers of this society has clearly been reading up on dystopia and has come to a conclusion that Hunger Games is the way to go. Only smaller. This is all acted out where plot holes are blatantly overlooked and the identity of a character really isn't that big a deal.

Suffering from a lot of vibes similar to that of the vastly inferior first Hunger Games movie. One can see a movie going for the same social commentary void of the core originality. The originality was also lacking, although not to the same degree, in the aforementioned film.

This obviously isn't to much of a problem seeing as how it's really not THAT similar in the way the movie gets the message across, but there are very similar traits to this film and you can draw some lines that would be hard to credit for being original. As I haven't read the book i can't say if that's something to blame on the author of the book or the writers working on the screenplay. To me it seems like whoever was in charge of what was going on towards the end of the film got a bit sick of working on this.

There are scenes in this movie where you may find the dialogue laughable or spine-tingling and cringeworhty. This goes for the story as well, when you're not able to tell where this movie is headed it takes a turn for the worse. However, don't worry, the guy next to me proved that predicting this movie from start to end isn't really an achievement.

I'm not gonna say that the acting was terrible, but it had it's definitive weak moments. Towards the end, and I don't think this will surprise anyone, there is a crying scene. It may actually be one of the most annoying moments I've ever seen on the silver screen or on any screen for that matter.

I could go on pointing everything that is wrong with this movie, but i won't. There are redeeming factors to this movie. I think the cinematography has some shining moments, maybe with a bitter aftertaste of pretentiousness. Anyone familiar with the musical works of Woodkid will know that his music has cinematic traits as a result of several years behind the camera, which I personally think is great. It really goes along well with this trendy and "not-so-dark-dystopian" world.

Ultimately it seems like a mix of Equilibrium and, as i already have mentioned to the point where it becomes boring(much like the message of this movie) The Hunger Games. You take the mush, cover it in 100$ bills, add a relatable teenage identity crisis, some predictable romance and overthrowing of a government and you have yourself a hit, at least among the younger generation.

Clearly though they haven't gotten it all wrong. My younger sister at the age of 16, seemed to think much better of this film. Hmmm... Go figure.
19 out of 37 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed