A Review of Divergent in General

Everyone keeps comparing this to The Hunger Games and apart from both books having a strong female lead there are no more similarities – so please stop!

This review is probably going be on both the movie and the book as well as the soundtrack so let’s just call it an overall review of Divergent in general.

Set in a futuristic Chicago, our community is enclosed behind an electric fence.  Due to the war years of the past, to keep the peace, our community is set into 5 different factions (factions are thicker than family) our factions are as follows:

·         Erudite – who are intelligent and crave knowledge more than anything else

·         Candor  - honest to the up-most as in no matter who they hurt they always speak the truth,

·         Amity – they are known as the peaceful – they look after agriculture, refuse to pick sides and don’t have a leader as such

·         Dauntless – the brave, they keep the peace, patrol the fence and to others  are known as the dare devils

·        Abnegation – they are selfless always helping others, they don’t own mirrors as that shows vanity and eat very plain food and because of their selflessness they run the government. 

On your 16^th birthday, teenagers undergo a test to see which faction they fit into. Up till then they are in the same one as their parents but regardless of what they are told, they can choose which faction they want to be in at the choosing ceremony. 

This is where we come in. We follow Beatrice (Tris) who has grown up in Abnegation.  After her test Tris is told she will is Divergent - they are considered dangerous as they can relate to all factions and don’t follow the mold as such. She is told by Tori (Maggie Q) who is a Dauntless to keep it quiet and choose a faction herself. She chooses Dauntless leaving her mother, father and brother (who also changed choosing Erudit) behind.  We soon see the Factions are beginning to falter and what it truly means to be a Divergent. While movies are rarely better than or even as good as the book, Divergent comes close. Sure some things are changed for the movie but for the most part, it works. 

Shailene Woodly plays Tris and she nailed the character. She was exactly how l imagined her in the book.  She takes the role on and makes it her own, from her starting off as an Abnegation and becoming a Dauntless  you believe all her struggles and are glued to the screen in all her scenes.  Theo James plays Four (already a Dauntless) and while he wasn’t exactly what l pictured when reading the book, by the end of the movie you believe him as Four.  Added bonus here girls: The man could not be any hotter if he tried, and thanks to me saying something along the lines of “finally” when he takes his top off, my friend ended up snorting tea through her nose!  Theo and Shailene have enough chemistry on screen that you believe in the characters and what they are feeling (which isn’t always easy).

 We have the always beautiful and immensely watchable Kate Winslet playing Jeanine. A truly horrible character that smiles at you while thinking of ways to get rid of you - Jeanine is not seen as much in the book - more talked of – but the script writers for movie have chosen to give her a bigger role and while it makes for quite a different ending to the book it works for the movie and doesn't ultimately change anything.   It’s not very often Kate plays a “baddie” but as always she is fantastic in her role and as much as l despise her character l was always excited when she came on screen.

There were two characters in the book that l felt did not transfer as well onto the screen. Edward is apparently present throughout the first half (I didn't realize it was even him) and then just disappears – l felt this character should have been used more.  He has quite a big scene in the book which also shows us how horrible Peter (played by Miles Teller) can be, this is shown in the movie but l feel it could have been driven home a bit more with this scene being added (that said the scene in question is a bit gory so it may not have been allowed in a PG13 film).  Al is the other character and while he is there in the film it took me a while to realize it. If anything, out of the two characters, l would have thought Al’s story line would have been too heavy to feature in the film. It was put in but l got the feeling it was possibly a last minute decision and not developed enough for us to actually care about it – whereas in the book l will admit to tears.  While l am disappointed these characters weren’t as involved l can understand why.  Divergent has a large cast and among others, some of the characters whose roles were great are Eric from Dauntless, Caleb (Tris’ brother) and Christina (Tris’ friend) who all get decent screen time.

The movie really is brought to life by the Director Neil Burger.  I feel this is a gripping, intelligent and well-paced film which is often not the case with book to movie adaptations and you are drawn in from the beginning with the first scenes of futuristic Chicago.  All this is helped by a fantastic soundtrack.  With contributions from Ellie Goulding , M83 and Zedd it’s very mixed but It works and gives you the futuristic feel the movie needs, its strong enough to actually make you remember scenes in the movie when you are simply listening to it on your I-pod.

All in all l loved this film. It had adventure, drama, some kick-ass fight scenes and some brilliantly touching scenes with a young cast who hold their own.  The movie is worth seeing and if you have read the book go in with an open mind and you will be fine. If you haven’t l am sure by the end of the movie you will want to learn more about Tris and her life as a Divergent. 

Transcendence - The Critics hate this movie because it makes you think…

Critics and some wannabe critics lashed out at this movie and nearly every review l read gave it a bad write up and l guess part of them is the reason l have for liking it. l went in still intrigued but not expecting too much. I was pleasantly surprised with it, it kept my attention and it made me think and l like movies that do that. l knew l really liked it when, by the time l was home, l was still questioning parts of the movie and its characters. 

Johnny Depp plays our lead Will Castor, an artificial intelligence researcher who aims to build a self-aware sentient machine with all the knowledge in the world along with a full range of emotions aka PINN (we never find out what this stands for but l came up with Personal Intelligence Neural Network….works for me!). Things start to go wrong when RIFT, an anti-technology organization shoots him – the shot doesn’t kill him but the bullet is laced with radiation poisoning and inevitably he dies thus bringing us to his wife and friend connecting him to PINN in attempt to save him mind and memories.  

There’s no shortage of A.I movies – PINN to a degree reminded me of the A.I. in I, Robot - V.I.K.I there was also just recently the more sensitive movie “Her” and Shodan from System Shock – who we know had evil intentions.  While l enjoyed these movies l think Transcendence itself was more thought provoking questioning how far technology has already come and what is ahead of us in the future.

The movie is directed by Wally Pfister who is Christopher Nolan’s favourite cinematographer (with good reason) and at times l could see a bit of Nolan’s directing but maybe that was just me. The movie looked good at all times, there are some beautiful visuals throughout the movie thanks to the cinematographer Jess hall who uses some truly beautiful shots of nature while still giving us that futuristic feel. The only issue l had with the movie in general was at times it felt a little disjointed and slow in places, that being said this is the first script we have seen from Jack Paglen and as first time writer it’s not bad as such, just a little unevenly paced in places. 

Johnny Depp as always gives a great performance (although it was slightly odd not seeing him in the usual make up normally required for his chosen roles). He plays the part Castor convincingly which wasn’t as easy as you might think. Rebecca Hall plays Evelyn Castor (Will’s wife) and has most of the screen time, she plays her character extremely well and holds her own against Depp and Freeman.   Morgan Freeman and Paul Bettany also have roles in the movie both of who play them well, although l would have liked to have seen more of Morgan Freeman. Cillian Murphy plays our FBI agent and at times I found he fell a bit flat that being said he has little screen time and it doesn't affect the movie.

I can understand people not liking this movie it’s not for everyone.  l would put is as a scif-fi thriller and if you not interested in technology and what it is possibly capable of in the future you’re probably going to get bored with it, there are a few action scenes but not enough for those simply looking for an action flick. There also isn’t a clear person or side to root for as such. There are no “good guy’s vs bad guys”. In this respect it is very nebulous, which is what leaves you with your questions, would you be part of RIFT or would be working alongside Will Castor?  A few reviews l read felt that Will Castor was in fact the villain of the movie, l personally didn’t see that, he was the first A.I. with emotion – and being inside a computer that never turns off is going to give you a lot of power and a lot of time to think of new ideas.  So – how far do you go and do some of your positives for mankind eventually turn around and become negatives? What happens when these ideas become a reality?