Movie Review : Divergent

I haven't read the book Divergent by Veronica Roth and I certainly haven't watch the trailer as well. I was at the theatre for Oculus, which I enjoyed and reviewed. After being scared to death by Oculus I decided to watch another movie at the next slot and it happned to be Divergent , let me tell you, I was so entertained!

All I could think of when I saw the movie poster was that it’s so much like The Hunger Games, and the studios did not try to hide this as well, there’s gonna be a sequal and believe it or not, it’s already in production! I love Shailene Woodley, she’s pretty talented. Her role in The Descendants was pretty awesome and it’s  refreshing to see her acting skills on this movie. However the very political plot the movie seems to be showing feels blurred with the “Twilight” sort of romance that obviously builds up with another “hot” cast, 4 played by Theo James who also turns out to have a lot of common traits with Trish (Woodley).

Divergent sets in a dystopia world near and around Chicago, the citizens are divided into 5 groups based on their personalities. They can be the smart kind, the self less kind, the brave kind etc. I really don’t remember all of it. When the kids  are  old enough to chose where they belong to, they go thorugh a test that is sort of like an aptitute test to help them decide which personality is their strongest, however, according to the very bitchy role that Kate Winslet plays, it’s their right to chose where they want to belong, nice eh? But the catch is that once chosen, it cannot be changed. The faithful morning arrives for Trish to do her test, surprise surprise, Trish does not have any particular personality that is stronger than the rest so she’s a natural born Divergent, which the authorities are super afraid because they can be anything amogst all the five categories they can chose to be. I see this as a commentary towards modern society where you are foreced to chose an identity from the stereotypes and when you chose not to conform to stereotypical labels people get scared and trust you me, the citizens of the movie are super scared of Divergents.

None the less, Maggie Q gets all worked up when she realize this while giving a test to Trish and eventually Trish decides that she wants to be in the “brave group” a group of crazy folks there to protect the city from the “outside influence” outside an electrical fence surrounding the world that they all live in.  Director Neil Burger nicely directs all the scenes so as to make the best “hollywood” effect to it. Christina (Zoë Kravitz) finds solace in Trish and they all join the brave group trying to fit in. The good thing about this movie is that the narrative is carried on seamlessly with Burger’s flawless directing like the slow motion when Trish jumps off from a roof top into a deep dark abyss noone really knows what’s gonna be underneath. The voice over also helps a lot in giving crash course lessons on what “the fuss is all about”.  However the political commentary that the book clearly tries to make gets blurred a bit with the romance sub plot. Don’t get me wrong, romance is not a bad thing for a movie but the fact that the “grown up” commentary The Hunger Games effectively conveys does not translate on this movie sets me off a little bit. If it’s not for all the very attractive cast, this would not work but it does, all thanks to hormones.  Jai Courtney who for some reason looks like a Macklemore look a like delivers his “so tough” role convincingly, I would hate him but I kind of do not because, yes, you guessed it, hormones.

I like how confident Lions Gate is for this franchise. It’s directed towards teenagers and like all teenager movies, they are always quite good but never pass the point of ‘good for the sake of marketing’. Ellie Golding seems to be the only A grade pop artist to be paid for this movie score as well. Strike to the intellect is clearly not the intention but it works. I would like to get a hold of the book and see if this is an “ignorance is bliss” scenario or just plain it’s “based on the book”. Maybe it’s a lot to wish upon from a movie about identity and fighting scenes but all the acting in it are great, Ashley Judd nailed her role, Woodley clearly does as well, Theo is convincing with his American accent and Ansel Elgort is Caleb, Trish’s brother who’s not given a lot of material to work on but none the less delivers a very solid performance especially the “holy shit” face he makes while crying on top of their  father, Scandal’s Tony Goldwyn . All I could think of was if I was in Trish’s shoe, they would totally push me off a cliff at training because I would NOT survive in a world like that at all.