Article by Rece Reiman 3/03/16

   On March 18, 2014 the movie Divergent was released which was based on the well loved book of the same title. First off this movie had such high expectations from many people who had read the books. But just like most book to movie adaptations it was a disappointment. The story is just shoved down in your face with little to no explanation because in books it is easier to describe something or have a character think to themself to help us understand what is happening. In a movie however this doesn’t work so basically if you didn’t read the books you have no idea what’s happening. The storyline from the books is such a thrilling one that’s why the books were so well loved. But the movie just didn’t do well expressing the main points of the story. Overall this movie is not worth seeing.

   All the good elements from the book were totally skewed and ruined. Any decent moment is memorable but it pales in comparison to how many cringe worthy scenes there were. A decent moment is when she jumps off the ledge into the pit. Some of the more cringe worthy scenes are when she’s clearly afraid of cheesy fake looking birds, or when she’s doing the fear simulation. Shailene Woodley, the notable actress from The Fault in our Stars plays main character Tris Prior.  However, even her talent couldn’t save this movie from disaster.

   The storyline isn’t that believable. Compared to other movies such as the Hunger Games or The Maze Runner this storyline is just not very convincing and doesn’t drive home any emotion. The dialogue is just awful and bland with no actual emotion behind it. It feels like they are just reading their lines and not even trying. This movie could’ve been amazing, but it just let us all down. Instead of an actual love story between Tris and Four in the books that takes all three books to come full circle. This one tries to rush it to early and it ruins all the good moments where they connect in the books.

   Other notes on the movie is that I didn’t really hear any of the music. If you were to ask me to name one song from the Divergent soundtrack I would just laugh. In any good movie you need a good musical score to help tell the story and here the don’t express the music very well to help drive the scenes home. Take John Williams for example, he is one of the best musical composers for movies. He has composed music for all the Star Wars films, The Indiana Jones films, and Jurassic Park to name a few. Some of the most recognizable music when it comes to movies has been directed by him and his music helps us think about those movies which gets them more publicity. This movie has no memorable soundtrack to helps us associate that music with that movie. Also the special effects are just laughable with just low budget looking computer animations for things like Tris’s dream sequence. It can’t be taken seriously when it looks so fake and cheesy. So overall rating of this film is that you should save your money and don’t go see it. But if you want to watch it with your kids then know it is PG-13 and there is some blood and some scenes of romance in there. Just make sure you check it out before you have your kids watch it.