The timing of the movie is a bit off since it has too many similarities with another popular franchise, The Hunger Games but I don't want to judge the movie based on those alone.
The movie is lead by a star studded cast featuring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Zoe Kravitz, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Ashley Judd, Maggie Q and Kate Winslet. Despite the line-up, I was a bit hesitant to watch this film as I personally find Shailene annoying as an actress and I was looking forward to see her prove me wrong.
The movie is set in Chicago during a post-apocalyptic time where the community is divided into different factions; Abnegation, Dauntless, Candor, Erudite and Amity. Each one represents a different characteristics of people and duties to perform. When children reach a certain age, they must decide which faction to join. A test is performed to find out where they are suitable.
Abnegation-born Beatrice/Tris (Woodley) finds out that she is a Divergent, one that does not fit in to any of the factions but nonetheless, she and her brother Cahleb (Elgort) chooses to leave their family as they pick to be Dauntless and Erudite respectively.
But being a Divergent means that a target is placed on her back as the government wants to track them down and eliminate as they strongly believe that they are a threat to the status quo. While being trained in Dauntless, Tris meets Four (James) and with his guidance, her skills are developed and a romance starts to bloom as Tris discovers how hard it is to keep her status a secret to the dangerous threats of the society.
I can totally see where the Hunger Games comparisons comes in and it is quite unfortunate for the movie to experience this as it is a decent flick. It is already getting mixed reviews from critics.
Shailene Woodley delivers a performance that is decent but still not enough for me to root for her. However, I am sure that the viewing public have no time watsed on eye candy provided by the leading actor, Theo James who couldn't prevent my seatmates in the theater to gush over him. Kate Winslet delivers a believable performance as a villain and shines in the movie. We also get to see a glimpse of Shailene and Ansel together as both of them are set to star in another possible blockbuster hit, The Fault in our Stars, where they play as lovers and not siblings.
The movie has plenty of action scenes and I've read some reviews where they find the movie too dragging but I don't have a problem with the screentime. I'd rather have them stay true to the book as much as possible and be able to show a lot of details. I don't think they were able to elaborate on every faction but I hope they'll touch on that in the next films.
I downloaded the complete book series after watching the movie and I hope to start reading them soon.
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