"Divergent" is very well executed and actually has a surprisingly satisfying story.

Rating: 6/10 (28 March 2014)

Better than The Twilight Saga but never as good as The Hunger Games, Divergent is the latest YA fantasy adventure to make it to the big screen with all of the aplomb of a soggy paperback. Of course, this adaptation skews way closer to Games, presenting a dystopian near-wasteland where its government-fearing denizens live an almost Quaker-like existence until unrest causes...hey, wake up! Okay, granted, that other series got exponentially better with the sequel, Catching Fire. Divergent, however, wobbly stands on its own slight merits. The ideology and theocracy behind the plot points look about as paper thin as the script pages it was written on, probably a hold-over from the novels on which they were based, which were criticized for the same infraction. The story - though far from ground-breaking - moves along at a brisk and exciting pace thanks to a strong main character, beautifully realized.
In this PG-13-rated sci-fi adventure, Tris (Woodley) learns she's Divergent and won't fit in a world divided by factions based on virtues, so she infiltrates a war-like faction to discover what makes Divergents so expendable to society before it's too late.
Like a certain actress working from, er, in Hunger, Divergent works so well because of an amazing lead performance. Shailenne Woodley runs with the role and never stops, hitting all of the emotional marks and administering - and taking - beatings for 2+ hours. Without the stunning work of director Neil Burger, however, all would be for naught. Though the whole post-war district thing has gotten old, he manages to color outside the lines with enough verve and originality to warrant a sequel. Let's hope the inevitable follow-up aspires more to Catching Fire than catching Eclipse though.