Divergent (Quick Review)

Young adult (YA) fantasy series have become quite popular to turn into movies; over the past two years we've gotten Percy Jackson, Beautiful Creatures, The Host, The Mortal Instruments, Vampire Academy, and The Hunger Games.  Out of all of them, The Hunger Games would be the only series I’d recommend, as the rest ranged from either so okay its average to completely god awful (cough, Vampire Academy, cough).  Yet out of the rubble and mess I found another YA fantasy that I could back with the “Its Good” seal of approval; a film called Divergent.

The film stars Shailene Woodley (as Tris), who you may already know (from my ecstatic reviews of The Spectacular Now and The Fault in Our Stars) I’m an eager growing fan of!  Strangely enough, Divergent also stars those film’s male leads, only in exact opposite roles; one playing a bullying antagonist while the other plays her brother (leading to some rather unintentionally hilarious and disturbing moments).  This time around, Divergent’s romantic male lead is played by Theo James, who plays a much more serious character yet still shares solid chemistry with Woodley. 

The big change here is Divergent presents Woodley in a dystopian action setting, encased in its own alternate world; significantly different from her earlier films (which focused primarily on romance, drama, or both), yet none-the-less pulled off.  I found myself engaged by the story’s structure, acceptable pacing, and unique setting.  I wasn't quite certain where the plot was going, but was enjoying the exciting ride.  The film contains an assortment of surprisingly dark material (murder, suicide, abuse, cruelty, betrayal, etc…) yet balances it with more lighthearted scenes to keep from alienating its audience; a strange stability of action, horror, romance, and wonder all advanced by an intriguing plot.

Similar to Snowpiercer’s finale, Divergent’s last third is by far the most disappointing section of the film.  When the big finale began, I suddenly found myself kicked out of an engaging world full of complex ideals, philosophies and characters and thrown into a cliché ridden, highly predictable action film.  Clichés suddenly start sprouting everywhere, such as:

1. The main villain ordering Tris killed…by having her shot outside by goons while he/she leaves without viewing the murder (hasn't Austin Powers taught us anything!?)
2. Extremely cheesy one-liners said at somewhat inappropriate times
3. Tris forced to face off against her brain washed lover
4. Enemy soldiers having worse aim than Star Wars Stormtroopers

There’s also some character regression in the last third, destroying the film’s moral ambiguity that made it so interesting during its first two-thirds.  While some characters were clearly jerks, there was a complex reasoning to their actions that (to a degree) were understandable.  Come the last third however, and suddenly these characters become generic a$$hole villains, with no true reasoning behind their actions other than “I’m an evil person”.  It’s a shame Divergent’s last third is disappointing, because the first two-thirds are right up there with The Hunger Games; still, Divergent is a good film overall, and one of the few YA fantasy films that actually warrants a sequel (which is confirmed to be in production).  My hopes is its sequel takes the positives of Divergent’s beginning and middle and creates a great film all the way through.