Not a bad movie, but the plot didn't seem to work that well

Rating: 6/10 (12 April 2014)

I'm not really sure about this movie because it seemed to be a little rushed, especially at the end. In fact it seemed to be one of those movies where a young person joins the army, spends three quarters of the movie doing basic training, and then the last quarter of the movie going out and saving the world – the only difference is that this movie is set far in the future after a major war where society has split into five interdependent clans that are each based upon a virtue (bravery, honesty, compassion, etc) and that once one joins a clan (based on a ceremony at the age of 16) then one cannot step out of the clan into another clan. The people are also tested to see which clan they best suit, however during that testing it can come out that one does not necessarily fit into a single clan, making them divergent.
To be honest with you I could not really see how the idea of the divergent being dangerous was and why they needed to kill them. In fact the whole concept didn't really work all that well for me. It wasn't a bad movie, if in a way you don't mind a bit of action, but on the whole it didn't seem to make all that much sense, with the whole section involving the training and then the attempted coup at the end. This further added problems to the whole concept, namely that if the system had been set up to prevent conflict in the future, then why was it that, all of a sudden, a conflict arose in the form of an attempted coup. It seemed that, on the basis of the plot of the movie, that the whole system has essentially failed.
There is also some Christian themes in the movie, which have come about from the author's statements that she is a Christian, and when one looks at it one can see right-wing Christian ideas coming out of this book. Basically it represents the ongoing conflict between the extreme church (as represented by Abnegation) and the extreme scientific community (as represented by Erudite) however, it also comes down in how you perceive the nature of the story, because Abnegation can also represent that aspect of society that supports the planned, egalitarian society, while the Erudite supports a free-market, might means right, form of society, and we see these aspects within the warrior caste, where those that don't make the grade are cast out and become factionless, and then the apparent coup against the ruling faction on the grounds that they horde the food, and hand it out to those who do not work for it.