Forgettable, Clichéd and Bland

Rating: 4/10 (6 April 2016)

Oh God, where to begin?
This is yet another one of those dull teen films that literally exists only because money-grabbing film-makers realised the books were kind of popular with the teenagers at the time, and, as a result, only teenage book-fans would ever claim that they actually enjoyed this tedious waste of everyone's time.
You can tell that the premise for this "story" came before anything else did; credit where it's due, the idea that society in the future is split into multiple different factions designed for a specific purpose to help the whole community is quite a convincing and interesting idea for a movie's setting (if only it's not one that's been used fifty f*cking times already).
So our main character is Tris, played (though I hate to say it) rather badly by Shaylene Woodley and she's a "Divergent". Her (awkward and forced) love interest is Four, played (also rather badly) by Theo James and he's also a Divergent... I think. I wasn't really paying attention. And our main villain is Jeanine, played by Kate Winslet and she might be a Divergent, who knows. Who cares. I certainly don't.
To put it as concisely and bluntly as possible, this film is BLAND. You'll come away from it having not given a single f*ck about any one of the characters because they're so boring and two-dimensional. I can't tell if that's down to poor acting or a poor script, but it's almost definitely both.
I can't stress how little I felt for the (and I use this word loosely) characters, because they lacked so little actual "character". Even when (spoiler alert, everyone) Tris' mother died, just nothing. No emotion was felt. And that's not just because I'm a heartless bastard, it's because she, like practically everyone else in this blank canvas of a movie, had no major impact on or off camera and also her total screen time was about five minutes. But I guess it's really emotional because mothers dying is really, really sad(!) Then her dad died and I somehow managed to give even fewer f*cks than when her mum died; and I gave no f*cks for that. Even Tris didn't seem to care that much. Come on, Tris, how can I feel bad for you if you quite blatantly don't give a sh*t.
Seriously, the only person in this entire movie I felt anything for was Miles Teller's portrayal of Peter, but only because Peter was a complete d*ck who unnecessarily insulted everyone else and that made it fun to hate him. At least being a massive d*ck is some sort of character trait, something everyone else in this film just doesn't have. When your favourite character is the one you hated the most, what does that say for the film he/she's in?
I can't go into details about the main protagonists and antagonists and their respective personalities because, like I've probably said too many times already, they don't really have any. I wasn't even entirely sure what the main villain's motivation was because it was never properly explained. Oh well, I guess just being evil is motivation enough for these writers(!)
It's easy to see that the only reason this franchise is getting the success and attention it's receiving is the fact it's piggybacking on the success and attention of the Hunger Games franchise. I mean, for f*ck's sake, the similarities between the plot and premise of the two is ridiculous. The main difference is this movie is filled with a lot more contrivances, tropes and story clichés. Oh yeah, and it's so much more f*cking BORING.
So if you're thinking of watching this movie, I recommend you don't...