Director Neil Burger
Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet
Rated M
Score 2.5/6

In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she’s Divergent and won’t fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it’s too late.

I know it’s a little cynical of me but I can’t fight the urge to quote Mike Nelson from Rifftrax about Bella Swan and say that Divergent is another movie with a typically abnormally confident, world-weary 16-year-old female protagonist. Or in other words this movie is based on a series of Teen novels by American novelist Veronica Roth. Setting that cynicism aside action movies with a typical ‘every female teen’ as the lead is a good thing, but the flipside of that is in most cases some of these movies come across as little or no thought goes into the plot and the came across that the filmmakers involved with these movies are flogging a dead horse. This highlighted by the fact that release dates for sequels have been announced before the global cinematic release has finished.
There was a really interesting concept that was the driving force of this movie with the idea of future where society is divided into groups based on personality traits, there was also some political intrigue thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, Divergent really did not hit all cylinders. Despite all the unfamiliar faces in the lead roles there was some brilliant actors in key roles like Ashley Judd, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer and Kate Winslet to help steady the ship. But they were not to save this one. Sadly Divergent really did not establish itself as something unique, director Neil Burger was not the right man for the job and Kate Winslet gave a forgetable performance as the antagonist of the movie.