Not at all expected

Rating: 6/10 (11 August 2014)

First, I will agree with some of the previous reviews that claimed the movie offered no new premise that hasn't been explored in recent "tween" movies. I have a teenage daughter, and have been forced through such movies as Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, The Hunger Games, etc. I expected Divergent to be cut from the same cloth. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. In the beginning, I thought the main actor (played by Shailene Woodley) was going to be of the same laconic and expressionless school of acting as Kristen Stewart. Her initial naivety was a little hard to swallow, and I was almost sure her her entire personality throughout the movie would be lukewarm. By the end of the film, I felt as though she turned the performance around, and I genuinely felt myself pulling for her. One of the main differences between this movie and some of those I've listed, is the genuine lack of palpable danger. There was a darkness to this movie that didn't rely on the supernatural to hammer the point home. The dystopian future realized in this movie was much more believable than the one found in The Hunger Games (in my honest opinion). This is one of the better movies I've seen in this genre, and one I would not mind following to its completion. I'm looking forward to the sequels, and will definitely be going to theater to see this with my wife and daughter.