Life Post: Divergent Movie Review

So Divergent was released this last Friday on Friday the 21st. After being a casual fan of the books, my sister and I set out to a late afternoon showing of the movie. We were the first ones in the theater, with a few older couples as well as a late teen couple straggling in as the previews started. I was surprised at how little people were in our theater for this highly anticipated movie. As we were leaving the theater, there was a crowd though so I was sure the movie would do well. This was proven by the fact that it made over $50 million during opening weekend.

On to the review!

So overall, I just thought the movie was OK. It was close to book, but it wasn't. It was fast paced, but it was slow. I don't know how to feel about it. It was not Catching Fire, a perfect book to movie adaption. There was little minor character development and the Dauntless initiation process was not explained or organized well; at points making it seem like the initiates were training how they pleased, instead of training by technique. Peter was never revealed as being the one to hang Tris over the canyon, he was not even made out to be as bad as he was in the book, at times there were even some funny moments with him in it. I wished they would have included Edward getting his eyeball stabbed out too. I wish all of the minor characters were more developed. I did enjoy the different action sequences; running and jumping on the train, the paintball/stun gun game (this change did not bother me so much), and the ziplining! The ziplining scene was fabulous! I loved how the zipline went through the different rundown buildings and I could not stop thinking about Allegiant. Allegiant is another whole topic for a different post though. 

At times during the movie I felt like it was dragging on and nothing was happening, like scenes with Four and Tris. The fact that Tris did not once call Four Tobias throughout the entire movie bugs me so much! Also, there was no revelation by Tris as to Four's identity. At other times it felt like they were speeding through important moments, or moments they could have enhanced for the movie. I don't see the point as to why they left out some of Tris' fears during her test. I did like the 'fake out' where the audience thought it was over but it wasn't. The changed ending did not bother me either, but I am wondering how they are going to explain everything in the next movie Insurgent. The scene when Tris' mom died! That was so emotional and sad. 

Overall the movie was just ok, something felt a little off about it, but it was not bad. I haven't read the book in a while so the details were not fresh in my head. This could have altered my view of the movie since I was not comparing every detail. 

Final Review: I would probably see this movie again when it comes out on Redbox, DVD, on Demand, Netflix, but I don't think I will be buying it.

Did you see the movie? What did you think?