Divergent Review

Rating: 6/10 (22 September 2014)

So 2014 has really been the year for strong woman characters in movies.Scarlet brought us Black Widow and Lucy,Emily Blunt kicks ass in Edge of Tomorrow,Maleficent freakin dominated the theatres!That brings me to Divergent.The latest teen novel to movie adaption that is thankfully more Hunger Games than Twilight.Shailene Woodley plays Tris.A young woman living in some sort of futuristic ruin of Chicago that has these virtue based groups of people.When Tris finds out shes been titled Divergent she also stumbles upon an evil plot to take out all Divergents.Chaos and rebellion ensue and we get what is a total set up to a saga.Ill explain in a bit.Ms.Woodley really owns her role.I admit it took me a minute to really get behind her character at first but as she gets stronger and progresses so does you connection with her.Like Katniss is Hunger Games,Tris is another great big screen,female badass.Theo James does alright as Four.He's advertised as a love interest but in the end his relationship with Tris I ended up really liking their chemistry.Sure there's a smidge of romance but the film focuses more on the character of Tris and the adventure that the movie tells.The story by the way is OK.It had a bit of a slow build for me but once I learned more about how civilization is run in this universe and why certain events were happening I got more into the story.Some of the dialog was pretty weak though and you can definitely tell its a movie working on a smaller budget than say The Hunger Games movies.There are still some really good parts in this movie.Some of the action was shot rather well and good character development leads to some pretty intense moments like when two well liked characters are hurting each other.This movie is definitely setting up a sequel and future films which kinda drags the movie down but also leaves me interested in where this series goes.It lacks the sheer suspense and scope of Hunger Games but thankfully puts character and story before a suffocating love story and countless shirt ripping scenes.If you're a fan I RECOMMEND A PURCHASE. For casual movie watchers ITS WORTH A RENTAL! 7/10