Divergent or Deviant?

Rating: 6/10 (19 April 2014)

I usually judge how engaging a movie is by how many times I look at my watch while it is playing. For Divergent, it was four. (Four! Really!) It's not boring, exactly. It's justÂ…meh. Despite the exciting music, high-value production and characters that pant and strain and STARE intensely, there just isn't much to go on here. The book was better because it had WORDS, and Veronica Roth is a pretty good writer (unlike certain other dystopian blockbuster authors I could think of). The movie exposes the story's basic weaknesses: a paper-thin premise and too few interesting characters (when one dies I can't even remember which one it was.) Moreover, we've seen this storyline so often before that we can practically write it ourselves. But Divergent delivers in some important areas: A-list actors, a kick-ass teen male hero (with beautiful tattoos!), some pretty cool action sequences, a great soundtrack, and Shailene Woodley, one of the few young actresses who really can carry a movie by herself. Four, of course, is practically perfect in every way: teen boys, if you want to know what girls want, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. Just grow muscles, have an old-fashioned sense of honor, be protective but don't be a chauvinist, be good at EVERYTHING but also have a deep psychological wound that a girl can help you overcome. Simple.