Fish and Cherries Productions

Divergent, on the whole, was okay. There was nothing truly bad in it, but that doesn’t mean it was all that good either. For one thing, a lot of the world felt underdeveloped and the characterization of the characters ranged from sparse to negligible, leaving us with jackasses who have no reason to be jackasses. The male lead in particular was quite cardboard and didn’t seem to have any chemistry with our female protagonist Triss, apart from when they were close and intimate. I’d even argue that a good chunk of the first half, in which Triss is trying to make it through the preliminary trials, felt unneeded and investment-free. Why should we want her to make it into this organization that resembles a fraternity in all the worst ways with a clearly corrupt leadership?

The movie really starts to shine in the final act where there were a lot more clever bits of the narrative, like dialogue and conflict resolution that I won’t give away. The resolution at the end in particular was well executed and, to its credit, was actually one of the things that I couldn’t see coming a mile away. So yeah, as far as young adult novel adaptations go, it’s passable. It’s not as good as The Hunger Games, but it’s certainly not as awful as The Mortal Instruments. Would I go see Insurgent? Yeah, but more out of curiosity and not because this movie made me a diehard fan.