REVIEW: Divergent (2014, Dir. Neil Burger)

I have it on reasonably good authority that Divergent, the first instalment in what will no doubt turn out to be a quadrilogy** of films based on Veronica Roth's trilogy of young adult novels, is a faithful reproduction. If that's the case, I guess I get to despair for not only the stale state of Y.A. cinema, but also the pitifully pseudo-empowering material at its source.

Tris (Shailene Woodley) is approaching her "choosing". At the age of sixteen, she is required, along with every other sixteen year old in her Brave New-ish World, to select which of the five tribes she'll align herself with, each branded to neatly box one's character in. There's Abnegation, for the selfless; Amity, for the peaceful; Candor, for the honest; Erudite, for the intelligent and Dauntless, for the brave. To help them in their choice, the teens are given some free psychoactive drugs and a holiday to their subconscious. Tris' trip proves inconclusive, so she gets given another label: Divergent.

That's not good, according to the rules. Enter danger...

If it is not already obvious, Divergent treads over what is now extremely familiar territory, and even then its footing is not at all sure. The world-building production design, which generally gets me through these affairs, is patchy at best and is often left hanging by the characters, who only half-heartedly inhabit it. The kids with the smarts don't act particularly smart; the peaceful kids are not much more than 60's flower-power throwbacks and the "brave", purportedly the community's police, act more like its resident hooligans. They're who Tris teams up and trains with but, of course, there's trouble afoot.

Director Neil Burger finds some tension in the material but he also finds a hell of a lot of needless gush, which he injects at the most inopportune moments. Tris' training scenes are regularly interrupted for random romantic interludes with her strong/silent mentor, Four (played by 'Downton Abbey''s ill-fated Mr. Pamuk, Theo James). They really are just thrown in for no other reason than to prod at the film's 15 year old teen-girl demographic. The problem is these scenes not only upset what little momentum the Divergent manages to muster, they whittle away at the film's only respectable asset, the strength of its female characters.

Woodley aside (and admittedly she is quite good when she's not mooning over her maybe-man), there are some decent turns from Ashley Judd as Trice's mother and Kate Winslet as the I'm-going-to-turn-out-to-be-really-nasty leader of the Erudite crew. Both are under used but they do well with the time they get on screen.

I'm not going to push the point but Divergent is par for the course stuff. It will have the faithful flocking, and judging by the pull quotes Twitter users have provided for the film's marketing, most will be more than satisfied. Personally, I feel like setting up camp in front of the multiplex with some flashing batons, uninterestedly repeating, "Nothing to see here..."

★★☆

**Word's already out that the current plan is to split the trilogy's final instalment into two.

Trailer: