"Divergent": Conformist, Mainstream, Mediocre

Rating: 6/10 (16 April 2014)

I was willing to take a risk on watching this movie late at night because it sounded like something bold and daring and I trusted Kate Winslet's name on the credits.
Kate Winslet's character is actually in charge of the conformist government and her acting skills seemed entirely negated in this role, like she plays a zombie for the entire film, and there's nothing interesting about the character she plays.
I've never seen Twilight or any movie in the series, but this movie got me in the mood to give them a shot. I think they'd be an improvement.
What starts off as a bright and hopeful movie with the central character, Beatrice Prior (Tris in the cast listing), giving an attractive assessment of the factions, especially Dauntless, turns into something dark and... stupid. She enters Dauntless and finds that it's run by jerks. We get the predictable scenes and scenarios of her almost getting kicked out of Dauntless to become factionless but she barely makes it in. She befriends one of the jerks who helps her and with whom she's destined to fall in love, just as in every other mainstream, teenage romance.
One of the parts that made me groan was when Beatrice Prior climbed the ferris wheel to get a better view of their opponents and her romantic interest and co-leader of the group, "Four", didn't want to follow her any higher BECAUSE HE WAS AFRAID OF HEIGHTS. He even said, "We all have our weakness." This, to me, was an overt attempt to appeal to every cowardly teenager who is also afraid of heights and a clear declaration of how spineless "Divergent" as a movie really is. There was a lot of this kind of follow-through.
Beatrice Prior, in being "Divergent", is actually a pretty normal teenage girl/woman who doesn't so much fit into a category as wants to fulfill her potential. Everyone else pretty much chooses conformity. It's as if being "Divergent" reaches a ceiling of conformity in this movie and everyone's lives become predictable.
I sincerely DO NOT recommend this movie unless you're in the mood to shove plastic brain pulp into your head. It sucked. I'm giving it 6 stars because it has Hollywood production quality, and I like to reserve much lower ratings for movies that don't even try to live up to mainstream expectations.
Besides: This movie doesn't suck in any exceptional way other than calling itself "Divergent" when it's one of the most conformist, mainstream, and mediocre movies I've ever seen. It deserves a mediocre rating....
It makes me a bit sad that this movie is classified as Sci-Fi... and Action to a lesser degree. At least when Twilight is called Fantasy, one may readily add "delusional teenage", which seems possibly more appropriate here when the same kind of movie is titled "Divergent". I don't think many Sci-Fi or Action movie fans will enjoy this movie. It looks like quality, but it's really schlock.
The least disappointing parts of this movie involved the excellent acting of Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn, who play Beatrice Prior's parents. They play the roles so well, convincingly, and genuinely, that I could forget for that time that the rest of the movie lacked any depth, meaning, or sincerity. For their screen time, I didn't feel I had to hold a great big load of crap at the back of my mouth to entertain the premise of the movie while all meaning of that premise was repeatedly violated by flat, spineless characters. Judd and Goldwyn deserve significant praise for pulling that off, and fortunately their characters were both killed during the movie so they probably won't have to endure any sequels to come :-)
This is another movie suitable for the decadent, self-deceived, spoiled teenagers who have yet to actually deal with reality on their own and discover the real consequences of being "Divergent", but good and bad.