Just another action movie for teenager

Rating: 4/10 (15 September 2019)

This review will contain many spoilers regarding the story.
Divergent is a movie with good premises, but since the beginning you already know that you are not going to watch an original movie. In fact for the whole duration I had a sense of Deja-vu: set in a dystopian future, after the ending of "The War" (?), the Chicago population is divided into 5 different factions. Everyone need to be fitted in one of these categories or you will end up as a homeless and factionless individual rejected by everyone. In order to decide which section you belong, you need to perform a test that tells which is the best faction for you, but during the ceremony day you get to decide which is the best option for you. Our main character is Tris, that during the test seems to belong to more factions. These people are called Divergents and cannot be controlled. They are considered really dangerous from the society and as soon as they detect one, they simply kill them.
So, another movie that tells that nobody belongs to a fitted category, that anyone should think with their own brain, and should have their own idea. Nothing original, but premises remains okay. The main issue of this movie is the lenght: almost 2 hours and a half. The first hour is focused on Tris, that after choosing the Dauntless faction, basically the group dedicated to protect the population, tries to integrate herself inside the faction in the best way possible, even if she is clearly not fitted, a thing that insted of being slow cooked, could have been resolved with a short montage, or, if the director felt the need to elaborate on, in a 20 minutes sequence, saving the viewer from the boredom. Finally the story begins and everything is so predictable, including the love story with his trainer, that is in the air since the first moment they met. The main villain is an erudite that want to genocide an entire faction that manage the city, so she, with her faction can finally take over the government. In my opinion she is not very credible as a villain and in the end was also pretty easy to defeat.
The acting is very flat, Shailene Woodley has the same expression for the whole movie, you cannot tell the diffference between happiness and sadness on her face and when she acts, she use always the same way of speaking. Theo James is the same. I wonder who did the casting and how they could pick so poor actors, especially if we are talking about the main ones.
I will try to watch the complete trilogy, before saying that the entire saga is completely unworth to be watched, but this movie is in fact very predictable: it uses a narrative scheme very well known and that you see a lot nowadays. It is a brainless Hollywood movie made for early teenagers (like 14/15 years old, maximum), if, of course, they manage to go through the entire movie.
I gave 4 stars out if 10 because CGI is on point and I really liked this distopian world. Also allucinations inducted by a special serum, are well studied.