The movie is never as good as the book, this movie proves it.

Rating: 1/10 (4 July 2014)

I am normally a movie person, but the book to this changed my mind. I couldn't put it down, I found myself getting lost in the story as if it was happening around me. I half wanted to see the movie and half did not, because I knew it would not be exactly the same as book. I was hoping that there wouldn't be a lot of significant changes to the story line. I felt that the casting was not thought out, a 30 year old Theo James playing an 18 year old, who is in a relationship with 22 year old Shailene playing an 18 year old Tris. Just looking at the two you can see that there is a large age difference but what makes the casting worse is that they don't have any on-screen chemistry. Many parts of the book that I thought were important were left out, starting with parts like the Aptitude test. Tori had to alter the simulation to put Tris in the bus because of her actions in the first part of the simulation she had only ruled out Amity. In the movie, she only goes through the knife choice and dog simulation. If the full part was in the movie it would explain a lot more.
Tori's attitude in the movie seems quite hostile where as the way that I read the scene was that she was concerned for Beatrice's wellbeing. Many scenes were completely different from the book. In the book during initiation there is a Family day where family members have the choice of visiting their children if they have transferred factions. In the movie this does not happen. Tris' mum sneaks in and speaks to her in secret. Through-out the movie Tris has to encounter Jeanine first at the choosing ceremony and then in the Dauntless compound, while she's walking through the halls and other times like when she is doing her final assessment. This does not happen in the book. Most of the movies attack simulation scenes differ from the book. When the Dauntless soldiers take Tris and Tobias to Jeanine in her office, they argue about the need to create a new serum to control the Divergent. Tobias lunges at Jeanine. The Dauntless soldiers stop Tobias while Jeanine injects him with the new serum. The new serum is created to manipulate minds, and it does, Tobias reaches for Tris and strangles her. After the guards separated them, Jeanine sends Tobias off to guard the control room and sends Tris for her execution. Tris wakes up in a glass tank, after being hit over the head, which is where her mum saves her from just before she drowns. In the movie they take the couple to Jeanine but it doesn't seem like they are in her office, more like a filing room. There is a struggle and Tobias does lunge at Jeanine but he Jeanine just says to the guards to bring Tobias with them and to get rid of Tris. Tris is taken outside and made to kneel, which is when her mum saves her.
In the book when Tris gets to the control room she finds Tobias on his own. She battles him, it takes her a while but she realises that she needs to fight the simulation because she will not win against him. By surrendering to him something in his brain clicked and he could see Tris. They stop the simulation and remove the simulation data. In the movie Tris finds Tobias tied to a seat, watching the screens which show the attack on the city, Erudite walking around, Dauntless soldiers on guard. He had been injected with the new serum, so when Tris set him free he attacked her. This is when they begin to battle, she does come to the same conclusion as the book, but in the movie Jeanine is in the control room amongst the other Erudite. Once Tobias came out of his manipulated state, he and Tris fight the soldiers in the room together. Jeanine runs to the computers to make sure the simulation is running accordingly, and Tris throws her knife into Jeanine's hand pinning it to the computer. Tris demands that Jeanine stop the simulation, but Jeanine refused. Tris thinking as fast as she can to stop Jeanine, see's a syringe and a vile of the simulation serum. Tobias grabs it and chucks it to Tris, which she uses to inject Jeanine. Once injected, Tris ordered her to shut the simulation down, which she did. The book contained a lot of dialogue which haven't been transferred to the movie, which removes context. In the book Four shouts at Tris while he is throwing knives at her head, the dialogue is simple but effective. This frustrates Tris and makes her more determined. As everyone else leaves the room Four tries to ask if Tris is OK, but she just shouts at him about the taunting, he tries to hint to Tris that he is being tough on her because he cares for her. In the movie, there's not a lot of conversation. Four doesn't say much to Tris while doing this, but he does ask Eric a question. When everyone leaves, Tris yells at him but unlike the book Tobias turns the conversation around to say that Eric wouldn't have let him stop if he hadn't have hurt her. In the book when Peter is being beaten in the initiation rankings by Edward, Peter stabs Edward in the eye with a butter knife. In the movie there is no mention of this, which I think is a mistake because he returns in the next movie. I wish I could re-write, re-cast this entire movie so that it was more like the book.