Average

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2017)

This does not, in my opinion, qualify as a true dystopian movie/book. At it's core, it's a teen novel that rides the coattails of the Hunger Games, though in fairness, it is original enough not to be called a copy. But the focus is much more on the teen novel aspects of it with the young characters and the romantic storyline with Tris and Four. The dystopian aspects that the movie is named for is pretty shallow. A major point of dystopian fiction is to examine how the actions we are taking right now could affect the future if they are unchecked. Nothing of that nature is present in the regime of government regulated stereotyping. There are no points made or debates raised concerning what it means to be Divergent. Additionally, the strictness of conformity that was expected from the people was not made clear, which I disliked, but I guess that shows how important it is to the story.
A major place where it lacked was its weak protagonist. Tris and Four are Divergents, and yet they have very little personality. Tris didn't feel like someone who is different. Honestly, she comes off as one of the most normal and colorless characters I've ever seen. She definitely has the least personality out of any of the other characters she interacts with. She has nothing driving her, and while that may be understandable for someone in her position, that's not the kind of person I'm going to root for. Now, part of that is probably because this was first a book, and that means that Tris' personality could be revealed to readers through her own thoughts instead of "character moments". I haven't read the book, but I've read Hunger Games, and I there were a couple of moments and shots that felt like they were trying to translate some of Tris' little interior monologues visually. It didn't help that Shaline Woodly gave a stiff performance that was comprised in large part of her gaping into the camera every few minutes. The other characters had some more personality and a couple had evident beliefs or motivations, but none of them were believable.
Now, I don't want to slam on the movie too hard, because it held my attention the whole time and was adequately entertaining, which counts for something. There were enough interesting and active scenes to keep me interested, and there was some good technical work done on it. The action was fine, but there was a problem with people handling injuries a little too well. Tris gets shot in the leg and then is walking on it just fine a few minutes later, and Jeanine seems largely unaffected by the knife that goes *through her hand*. Probably the most striking thing about the movie was the sound mixing. I don't know why that stood out to me, but there was a lot of intensity created by the blending of the score and the other sounds of the movie.
However insignificant that may be, it speaks to how unremarkable the rest of the movie was. There was nothing special about the characters, plot, or the world that was created. Yeah, it looked nice, but that doesn't really make up for the fact that it was essentially a pretty bland movie. It was like somebody made an amazingly well-cooked loaf of Wonder bread; as good as it is, it's still Wonder bread so there's only so good it can be. So I won't recommend this one way or the other. If you liked Hunger Games, yeah, you'll like this, but I think this is a couple steps down from that. But don't feel like you're missing out if you haven't seen it. Overall Rating: 7.2/10