Divergent. (12A.)
Directed by Neil Burger.
Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Jai Courtney, Zoe Kravitz, Ashley Judd, Miles Teller and Kate Winslet. 139 mins.
Divergent isn’t a great title but it is certainly a functional one. It communicates to its target audience, teenagers, exactly what they want to hear – that they are special, that they are different and that they do not fit in. Where once studios were looking for a next Harry Potter and then a next Twilight, now they need a next Hunger Games: another teen berk dystopian fantasy in which a post-apocalyptic society has improbably but conveniently reformed itself into adolescent angst wish fulfilment.
This one, taken from a Veronica Roth’s novel, sucks up to the teenage idea that High School is the centre of the world and that, compared to their complicated selves, everybody else is a simplistic drone defined by a single characteristic. After a devastating war Chicago is a walled city, where society is divided into five factions – Dauntless, Abnegation, Erudite, Amity and Candor and all the sixteen-year-olds take a test to decided which group they are most suited to and then the next day they choose which one they want to join. Amity are the perpetually happy manual workers, Candors are always honest so are employed as lawyers (huh?) and Erudite are the intellectuals and in this story the bad guys. Meanwhile the selfless Abnegation are the rulers – they didn’t inherit the earth but here the Meek at least got post apocalyptic Chicago.
So its Logan’s Run meets Mean Girls with the rigid High School cliques now dominating society. In her test our heroine Tris (Woodley) discovers that she is Divergent, doesn’t fit into any faction and decides to join Dauntless, the combined police, military force. They are like the Kids From Fame doing Parkour, an ants-in-their-pants crowd who are always on the move, leaping, climbing and swinging all over town, constantly jumping on and off of the monorail trains to a percussive accompaniment. They shall have the soundtrack of Stomp, wherever they go.
It’s all nonsense and visually drab but it does whip swiftly through its bloated running time and the cast are nice enough. Shailene Woodley played Clooney’s oldest daughter in The Descendants and she may have what it takes to be a teen idol. She is approachably pretty rather than intimidatingly stunning but her big eyes are almost anime expressive, while her love interest, Theo James, looks like James Franco’s hunkier, better looking brother and his gas mark has been set to smoulder for the entire film.
Directed by Neil Burger.
Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Jai Courtney, Zoe Kravitz, Ashley Judd, Miles Teller and Kate Winslet. 139 mins.
Divergent isn’t a great title but it is certainly a functional one. It communicates to its target audience, teenagers, exactly what they want to hear – that they are special, that they are different and that they do not fit in. Where once studios were looking for a next Harry Potter and then a next Twilight, now they need a next Hunger Games: another teen berk dystopian fantasy in which a post-apocalyptic society has improbably but conveniently reformed itself into adolescent angst wish fulfilment.
This one, taken from a Veronica Roth’s novel, sucks up to the teenage idea that High School is the centre of the world and that, compared to their complicated selves, everybody else is a simplistic drone defined by a single characteristic. After a devastating war Chicago is a walled city, where society is divided into five factions – Dauntless, Abnegation, Erudite, Amity and Candor and all the sixteen-year-olds take a test to decided which group they are most suited to and then the next day they choose which one they want to join. Amity are the perpetually happy manual workers, Candors are always honest so are employed as lawyers (huh?) and Erudite are the intellectuals and in this story the bad guys. Meanwhile the selfless Abnegation are the rulers – they didn’t inherit the earth but here the Meek at least got post apocalyptic Chicago.
So its Logan’s Run meets Mean Girls with the rigid High School cliques now dominating society. In her test our heroine Tris (Woodley) discovers that she is Divergent, doesn’t fit into any faction and decides to join Dauntless, the combined police, military force. They are like the Kids From Fame doing Parkour, an ants-in-their-pants crowd who are always on the move, leaping, climbing and swinging all over town, constantly jumping on and off of the monorail trains to a percussive accompaniment. They shall have the soundtrack of Stomp, wherever they go.
It’s all nonsense and visually drab but it does whip swiftly through its bloated running time and the cast are nice enough. Shailene Woodley played Clooney’s oldest daughter in The Descendants and she may have what it takes to be a teen idol. She is approachably pretty rather than intimidatingly stunning but her big eyes are almost anime expressive, while her love interest, Theo James, looks like James Franco’s hunkier, better looking brother and his gas mark has been set to smoulder for the entire film.
