Best tween film in ages

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2014)

I'm glad I got around to watching this, I'm not sure who's writing the negative reviews or what they were expecting but I can honestly say that this is the best tween film I've seen in a long time.
It IS a tween film, it's blatantly aimed at young girls and as a "twenty-something" youngish female, I'm not embarrassed to say that I really enjoyed this film. It's pure fantasy fodder of course but here's what I liked about it:

the relationship between the two leads develops naturally i.e. they don't see each other and go 'you're my soulmate', in fact they don't really get on at first so this is believable and refreshing

the lead actress (Shailene Woodley) playing Tris is extremely natural and one of a very few actors I've ever seen who has convinced me that they are grieving (usually grief in films is just 'oh, they're dead, I'm so upset' ... swiftly moves on with their day..) - Actually both of the leads (Theo James as well) play their roles really well

I loved the point of view shots like when Tris looks at Four during the training and you see it from his perspective and then the camera cuts to his face to get his reaction to the look she gives him (there are other similar scenes) and it just adds to the effect of feeling like these are real people and I empathised with them more as a result

Yeah the background story for the city is quite thin but who cares, stranger things have happened in the real world and what I like is that we're given a sense of 'this is what they've been told but is that what's really happened?'. I'm not sure if that's in the book or if the film makers wanted to add some realism for us grown-ups but when they question what's out there, I got the feeling this might be similar to The Island (2005) - that's not a spoiler it's just my opinion and probably totally off base

I have now watched this film about 4 or 5 times because I really liked so much of it: the fighting was believable for me because I think we've all gotten used to flashy choreography and sound effects but that's not what real fights look like or how they sound so for me, these fight scenes are really good. I liked the weapons because they kept it simple and for training, they're a good idea.
Probably the thing I liked the most is the fact that "it's not all about Tris". I mean, it IS all about Tris but it's not 'totally in your face, the world revolves around Tris and no-one else matters' all about Tris... What I mean is that there are some "films" out there which spend their entire running time having the supporting actors running around warning the lead actress not to have sex with her boyfriend lest he destroy her vagina but in this film, the lead actress often shares centre stage with her new best friend, there are a lot of scenes where she is in the background looking out as opposed to a lot of shots of her standing alone / in the centre and we see her friend fighting too; the focus is just not 'always' on her. Having said that, I do think that there could have been even 'more' focus on the people around her. First of all, had we gotten to know her friends better, we might have empathised with them more (trying not to include spoilers!) and also, this will sound harsh but it needs saying, I'm sick of seeing 'ethnic' people in minor or reduced roles: what a waste of Mekhi Phifer! I wish that Zoë Kravitz had been given more to do, yes she had a decent amount of screen time but I would have liked to maybe see her 'fearscape' and... that's about it for ethnic characters I think... yep.
I liked that Jai Courtney's character didn't go overboard as the villain but again, his character was a little one dimensional and I would have liked to have seen some more interaction and dialogue between him and Four just to flesh out their background story.
Kate Winslet honestly did the best she could with her part and it's a massive credit to her that she managed to make me severely dislike her and believe that she was evil with just a few odd lines here and there. Her role is to literally just pop into the film every now and then to be a bit menacing and give off a female-Hitler vibe (bright blonde hair). But she pulls it off in my opinion. There's no point in elaborating on why someone is pure evil, we know this exists, it's happened in the real world and it's still happening so her role didn't distract from the believability of the story.
Overall, I liked the subtlety of the story. There is no sex, no profanity, no overt 'I love yous' yet it didn't come across as 'after-school-specially' at all. Also, I never groaned out loud once or cringed or had to hide my face behind a pillow while someone professed their undying love for someone they just met a week ago. The dialogue was realistic with occasional over-rehearsed acting from some of the supporting cast but I really loved this film. Go into it knowing it's a tween film and that there won't be a lot of intelligent scientific explanations for things and you'll probably enjoy it as much as I did.
9/10