Predicted Rating: 3.5 Stars
Directed by: Neil Burger (A McDonalds commercial). Starring: Shailene Woodley (Not The Amazing Spiderman 2), Jacked-up Macklemore wait I mean Jai Courtney (The shit Die Hard), and Zoe Kravitz (only here because she is someone's daughter).
In the future, after a devastating war, the citizens of Chicago are divided into five factions; Abnegation (selfless, who wear grey), Amity (peaceful, wear orange), Candor (truthful, wear white), Erudite (intelligent), and Dauntless (brave, wear black), based on their personality types. We meet our heroine, Beatrice Prior (Woodley), who is at the point of choosing her faction. Upon completion of the test she is found to be divergent, i.e. she displays the characteristics of several factions. She must then chose a faction whilst keeping her ability a secret.
Oh my god this movie is so fucking stupid. I am not sure if you noticed but this movie is trying to provide the audience with a message. This message is to be who you want to be and not what everyone tells you to be. I don't mid movies having a message but this one is so forced it is like going to a pep rally and have everyone hit you with the signs so much that what they are protesting about is permanently bruised on your chest. In fact I think it would have been much more entertaining if be who you want to be was just written on the screen for 2 hours. As the message is so forced it means that everything that is set up to go against the message is so illogical that it borders on stupidity. What am I talking about borders on stupid, more like this movie is so fucking stupid. Below is a list of all of the completely stupid things included to try and make this movie work.
1. The faction system is ridiculous. You are basically forced to live in one of five places your entire life, you cannot change EVER, you keep the same job your entire life, you aren't aloud to socialise outside your faction, and you are dragged away from your family never to see them again if you chose another faction. If this doesn't scream a rebellious overthrow I don't know what does. The last thing the narrator mentions in the opening monologue is that "the system works". No, no it wouldn't work, stop trying to tell me it does.
2. When the kids are a certain age they undergo a test the determine what faction is suitable for them. Essentially it is a personality test. The test literally lasts for 30 seconds, and I think I am being generous here, so no wonder people test divergent.
3. On this I have no idea why it is a big deal when people are "divergent". Pretty much everyone will display the personality traits of more that one faction. Essentially it says if you are intelligent you can't be brave, nor peaceful, nor truthful, nor selfless.
4. Even when the test spits out an answer, you have an opportunity to chose what faction you want, essentially making the test redundant. It is fairly obvious from the start which faction our main character was going to chose. Dauntless are essentially built up to be the cool people whilst everyone else are just a bunch of nerds. It wouldn't make an interesting movie if she picked Amity. Today your lesson is to learn how to plant potatoes.
5. It casts intelligent people, more importantly scientists, in a terrible light. They are the bad guys of the film and are made out to be jealous, heartless bastards. This frustrated be to no end.
6. I didn't care in the slightest when any of the characters died, they were all terrible people.
7. Finally, it tries oh so hard to be The Hunger Games but fails so badly.
The overarching story for this is the attempt from Erudite to overthrow Abnegation to assume power by manipulating Dauntless. This story is so boring. I don't care what happens because the faction system is so stupid. In no point does anyone question the faction system, they just say that Erudite is being naughty. It would make a much more interesting and logical movie to follow a group of rebels trying to overthrow the system. Some other much more interesting story lines would be to look into why there is a giant wall built around the city. Are they trying to keep something out, or keep people in? Or what caused this apparent apocalypse? Is it worldwide or just isolated to Chicago. So many unanswered questions. Unfortunately there are going to be sequels and even more unfortunately I read the wikipedia pages and they address none of these issues.
Overall: This has cracked my list of five least favourite movies. It is absolutely terrible. Avoid at all costs. It is not even entertainingly bad. It is just boring. 0 Stars
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