The New York Times review forced me to defend this film

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2014)

I did not read the book. But this movie makes me wish I had despite my not being in its target audience.
First of all, Divergent is a far better film than I expected. If you must compare it to the Hunger Games franchise, I think it holds up quite well for the simple reason it is clearly the more intelligent of the two. The idea of splitting society into five factions is brilliant and more than a little suggestive of reality. The key idea, that those who don't conform are dangerous, is practically sacred scripture in our society and with our security people in particular.
Second, the two leads are impeccable choices, Shailene Woodley and Theo James do a great job. Ms Woodley captures your interest and evokes more feeling than most actresses do in their entire careers. And Mr James moves as convincingly as a trained martial arts star and is easy to imagine as a leader.
That said the first half is much better than the second where the movie devolves a bit into a much more run of the mill story. I can understand why it would given the demands of the market, but I was so pumped by the first half I was more than willing to forgive. It made me wonder what the novel was like especially when I read beforehand that the novel was written by a woman.
I have never read anything written by a woman as unexpected as this movie's setup. The specific territory I'm referring to, paramilitary training, is almost never gotten even half right by women. There's a better understanding of it here than most men have especially because most men haven't seen military service. For once the female lead is not treated as some superwoman. Tris, the heroine, is knocked down and bloodied as a real woman would be and the focus on courage is something else I was glad to see properly addressed.
For a teenage girl this is going to be a special event. I highly recommend it for them all, even if they haven't yet read the novel. As for everyone else, all I can say is I enjoyed it. And I know for me the name Veronica Roth, its author, is now one I'm not likely to ignore.