THE HUNGER GAMES 2.0 is born

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2014)

Following suit of TWILIGHT SAGA and THE HUNGER GAMES, another young adult franchise embarks on its lucrative conquest, DIVERGENT, shares the same dystopia milieu in the future as THE HUNGER GAMES and a teenage female protagonist, Tris (Woodley), who fights to be fit in a world divided by five factions according to five virtues (erudite, dauntless, amity, abnegation and candour), but she is born to be a maverick who defies categorisation and is so-called a divergent. She joins the Dauntless and meets the mysterious Four (James), the trainer of the initiates, together their romance is budding through the training programs; then they discover Erudite leader Jeanne (Winslet) is scheming to annihilate and usurp the Abnegation faction (which is the present authority and where Tris' parents belong) to be the ruling class, meanwhile Dauntless members are hypnotised as the killing machine, only the divergent are immune to it. So by the end of the first chapter of the trilogy, they temporarily sabotage Jeanne's plan, which persists in eradicating the weakness aka. human nature out of human beings, but as cheesy as it sounds, actually love cannot be eradicated.
Visual effects are mediocre at its best, the paralleled shift between the virtual and real world is less glamorous but pertinent to the engaging buildup of Tris' character, the mid-way rope- sliding in the night is a catharsis to feel thrilled and emboldened. The white-knuckle, adrenaline-driven, money-spending high point was never set alight, the entire procedure to scotch the scheme looks jejune, the last ditch to turn Jeanne into doing Tris' bidding is a knockout, but before that, the whole plan is a disorganised hash, the puny suspense agglomerated through the acting-like-robots gimmick never pay off, not to mention a hasty design to kill off Tris' parents, who else is psyched and wants to watch Ashley Judd kick more asses?
On the philosophical ground, a future nation originated by Veronica Roth actually makes more sense than say, THE HUNGER GAMES (2012, 7/10), a virtue-divided society could be an ideal notion if only multiple options are applied. Our current spirit is that we should never be classified as any types, multifariousness is the keynote, so the vehement repercussions of its novel sources are totally justifiable.
Shailene Woodley is the key to the success of the franchise, a timid next-door-girl as the first impression, but she has a dogged willpower, dare to chase her dream and bear a heroine's affinity, it is her star-making turn after her breakthrough in THE DESCENDANTS (2011, 8/10). Theo James, memorably remembered in his one-episode only guest appearance in the British sensational hit DOWNTON ABBEY (the unfortunate Mr. Pamuk), is a new rising star, DIVERGENT is his well-suited springboard, it is never too late to be a hot teen throb. Winslet, for the first time as a villainess in a studio project, similar to Jodi Foster in ELYSIUM (2013, 7/10), harbouring a high-flown goal but has little to offer except her evil mindset.
I think I will be looking forward to the chapter two because I am hooked to see what will happen in the following step, which I have no clue since I prefer movie to book as a media to chiefly dispense my energy with, at any rate, THE HUNGER GAMES 2.0 is officially on and a young heart dies hard.