Friday, April 4, 2014

Quick Take: 'Divergent' (2014)

To some extent, Divergent is a combination of The Hunger Games and Inception. Anything that resembles Inception has to be good right? First of all it would be difficult for a film by Scorsese about the mob and their involvement in dreams to be as good as Inception.  Secondly, Divergent’s quality is tee ball compared to Inception. The fact that Divergent was adapted from a book series and its futuristic feel from the tiring futuristic setting is where it draws comparison to The Hunger Games. Of course, also there is the young female protagonist who is way out of her comfort zone but must overcome difficult odds. It is here that it is important to note that, although she never knocks it out of the park, Shailene Woodley is respectable in the ‘fish out of water’ role as her performance can easily be digested by target audiences. The reason I even bother to mention Inception is the physically induced dream/fantasy like sequences in Divergent. There is scene where Theo James’s character Four comes face to face with his abusive father that is very Inception like and is really well done but quickly becomes far less interesting. It is these types of decisions that keep Divergent from going anywhere. Although arguably unoriginal, there are decent foundations built in the film but when it could be something with actual emotional value, these situations just become messy and boring action scenes. Eventually they all add up to a drawn out, vision-less ending.  

Grade: D+

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