Better Late Than Never: My Thoughts on the Divergent Movie

Warning: this review has spoilers!!!

I read Divergent over a year and almost a hundred books ago. I liked the book, but I didn't love it the way I did the Hunger Games trilogy. So yes, it took me a while to get to the theater to see it. 

What I liked: 

 

I thought they did a fair job of summing up the factions and how this particular dystopian world operates. Tris was born an Abnegation, a fair-minded, selfless faction abhorring vanity. There's a great scene of Tris having dinner with her family, surreptitiously turning over her spoon to glance at her reflection. Tris' world is plain and unassuming, but that's not what she wants. She wants to be extraordinary.

I thought Shailene Woodley did a great job of playing Tris.I also liked Zoe Kravitz as Christina.

What I didn't like:

Okay, here's my biggest complaint. FOUR!!!!! I know that everyone has their own ideas of how fictional characters look, but Four seemed horribly miscast. First off, he shouldn't be attractive. Plus, he seems way too old! How is he going to pull off Four's more vulnerable moments in Insurgent and Allegiant? Ugh.

One other thing. Al's betrayal of Tris (and his suicide afterward) hardly packed a punch, mostly because Al is a minor character who barely speaks, just shadowing Tris's group of friends. I felt that this was such an important part of the book, and it should have been more important in the movie.

All in all, I felt that the movie was above average, but not something I'd want to watch again. That said, I went to the movies with my family, none of whom read the book, and they loved the movie. So maybe it would have been better to go with no expectations.