Not very divergent, ironically.

Rating: 5/10 (15 April 2014)

Over the past few years, the young adult novel adaptation has become a popular as shown with the box office success of franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games. However, despite the million dollar success of the aforementioned franchises, other attempts to create big franchises based on young adult novels, more often than not fall flat on their faces. This is due to either the fact that they aren't unique enough to stand out (and therefore doesn't get the box office popularity it needs to start a franchise) or are flat out rubbish. This is more of the former. While there is some bright sparks that suggest this franchise has more to offer in future installments, the first part is far too safe, predictable and formulaic to justify it's stance as a film that will lead on to a more interesting franchise.
The plot of the film is that Beatrice Prior is living in a future-set dystopian Chicago, which is divided into five factions which are based on the various personalities of the people who live there. These are Abnegation (selfless), Amity (peaceful), Candor (truthful), Erudite (intelligent) and Dauntless (brave). Beatrice Prior, however, is a divergent, a group who are hunted down by the government in order to maintain the peace. In order to hide this, she joins Dauntless, a more militant faction under strict rule. Will she be able to cope by belonging to a single group or will she reveal her divergence.
The plot is one of the film's more obvious flaws, seeing as it steals many of its major plot threads from another source. The faction system brings to mind The Hunger Games, but while watching the film you'll start to notice that the film seems to owe more to Philip K. Dick, with much of technology used in the film and the way that the mind is a running theme, seems to have come out from one of his stories. This isn't a huge gripe, seeing as how it is slightly more subtle about it's theft than other franchise starters (Constantine and The Hunger games for instance), but for a film called Divergent, it doesn't seem to be unique enough to truly stand out in order to interest audiences not familiar with the source material.
That highlights the major flaw with this movie as a whole: it's far too bland and safe. It's a setup movie at it's worst, something that gladly sets up (some of) the world and characters but is lacking in confidence to truly spread it's wings and soar. The world isn't shown in high detail, the villains here are clearly pawns for a bigger power and on top of this, throughout the majority of the running time, nothing hugely important seems to happen. Sure we find out that the girl here is a divergent and a few major events in her life happen here and there, but for the most part, the movie consists of training segments and montages. Not very exciting stuff is it?
It definitely isn't exciting, considering when the action consists of shaky cam, fast editing and close-ups, that ruin the action than make it more intense. It isn't just during the action though, as there are many parts which use gimmicky camera tricks in order to make the movie cooler than it actually is. Casein point, there is a dream section where the camera circles the characters, which could potentially make you feel nauseous.
However, there are some good things, that gives this franchise some hope of improving. The acting for the most part is good, even if the main lead is bland, and Kate Winslet is wasted as the villain. The world definitely looks interesting, and the money ($85 million) is clearly on the screen. On top of this, excluding action and certain scenes, the direction is good, and proves that he is great at dramatic set pieces. Despite all of this, the film is clearly lacking in many areas to justify itself as the next big sci-fi franchise.
Overall, despite a few high points here and there, the film lacks any punch. Even though things could improve in future entries, the film itself isn't divergent enough (pardon the pun) to stand out and have any staying power as a result.