Director: Neil Burger
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 1.0
Post-apocalyptic Chi-town has its citizens divided into five different sectors - based on their personal traits - and young adults have to decide which group they're most suited for (even going against their parents and upbringing for these 're-education camps'): special snowflake Tris (Shailene Woodley), as it turns out, is so unique she actually fits in with all of the categories ("divergent") which apparently means she's a social freak and an outlier to be feared by everyone. It's impossible to view this without immediately thinking of the slightly better Hunger Games stories Veronica Roth was clearly aware of and cribbed from: the 'political' aspect to it is pedestrian and weakly constructed (did the apocalypse happen because humanity's stupidity finally did itself in?), the leads are artificial (Theo James: trying to balance tough guy and emotional softie ... how nice) and the movie seems to revel in tedious scenes of people jumping into pits and flying around for 'excitement': more tiresome CGI-filled self-gratification. Woodley, as an actress, is not in Jennifer Lawrence's league.
