***Spoilers ***
3 out of 5 stars. ***Spoilers***
The first hour of the movie is exciting and engaging. It takes us through Beatrice's world and its changes. Once we focus on her training at the dauntless facility and the development of the actual outside (conspiracy theory) story, we run into problems. If you haven't read the book(s), my guess is you are going to be very confused because there are scenes that really don't make sense and they were there just to show some of the quotes from the book. 4 and Tris' relationship doesn't progress well. I really could have done without the tatoo/kissing scene (even though that was huge in the book). The last 40 min of the movie felt extremely rushed. They spent so much time showing us Tris' world that the movie makers forgot that there is a world outside of Tris' reality and by the time they tried to introduce it to us, well it was too late for any of us to really care about them. We never really fall in love with Will or Al so it's not sad to see Tris shoot Will nor did it make me sad to see Al end his life. The only relationship that came close to being satisfactory (for me) was Eric's ruthlessness as a trainer and as a leader. With a cast so amazing, you'd think that they would squeeze as much talent out of them as possible, nope. Most of them are pretty much forgotten. Mekhi Phifer was given a couple lines and a little bit of screen time at the end during the simulation. Kate Winslet was given more screen time but they wrote in scenes that were not in the book. I would have liked them to show us more of her in Erudite headquarters so that we could learn who she was and what she was doing. It felt out of place for her to have SO much concern for Tris when she never really did in the book and what was going through heir minds with that final fight between Tris and Janine Mathews?? - that was out of place, out of character and totally useless. Theo James was AMAZING for as little as he actually influenced the plot of the movie. I was so excited to see him because he was great in Underworld awakening but in Divergent his character never really developed. He was limited to yelling at the transfers and running with Tris. There were cool scenes with him but we don't get to see his emotional depth until his fear landscape. The fear landscape was very well done but other than that, I don't think they let him shine. Shailene Woodley was pretty good. She carried the movie well and delivered a believable performance. The rest of the cast had too little dialogue or screen time to make an impression. I Loved the visual of destroyed Chicago and the feel of isolation and confinement. All the elements to make this a great adaptation were there but in many ways, they made the mistake of bringing the book to life instead of making an action movie. Sad, because I was very excited for it and now I just want to read the book again. Right now I'm not looking forward to Allegiant the movie unless some serious changes are made to the screen writers and the director.
See other reviews following the link here: movietickets reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment