Dauntless Effert

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2014)

I saw "Divergent", starring Shailene Woodley-The Secret Life of the American Teenager_t.v., The O. C._t.v.; Theo James-Golden Boy_t.v., Underworld: Awakening; Ashley Judd-Olympus Has Fallen, Kiss the Girls; Zoe Kravitz-After Earth, X-Men: First Class, and oh yeah, she is the daughter of Lenny Kravitz & Lisa Bonet and Kate Winslet-Contagion, Titanic_1997.
This is another one of those movies that is based on books aimed at teenagers-think 'Hunger Games', 'Twilight', etc., so you can expect sequels. The story takes place in Chicago in the not-too-distant future- I don't remember them mentioning a specific date. The world is divided into five factions,based on their personality traits. Abnegation is for selfless people that do anything for anybody, without expecting a reward-think boy scouts. Dauntless is a warrior clan that police the city when they are not thrill seeking by jumping off buildings and moving trains. Erudite is the really smart people. Candor is the totally honest people that never lie-great politicians. Amity is the pacifist people-think latter day hippies. When kids reach a certain age, they are tested to see which faction they will become a member of. Shailene plays a young girl that has to pick her future path, and like lots of teenagers, she just can not decide. She doesn't fit into any one faction and when that happens, you are called Divergent. But, being Divergent is highly frowned upon-it can get you banished or even killed-so Shailene keeps it to herself and joins the Dauntless. Theo is her trainer, and maybe future love interest? Ashley plays her mother. Zoe is a fellow recruit and Kate is the leader of the Erudite. FYI: At my theater-AMC- they were passing out little bracelets with the five different factions printed on them-I even had a women offer to buy mine from me before the movie started so that she could give it to her granddaughter. I kept it. It's rated "PG-13" for violence and sexuality-no nudity-and has a running time of 2 hours & 19 minutes. I have never read the books but I enjoyed it and would buy it on Blu- Ray.