In the mold of The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Maze Runner, and other young adult book franchises comes the surprisingly good Divergent. A surefire box office success because of the successful book series, Divergent did not do quite as well with the critics (41%) as well as the first Hunger Games (84%), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (80%), or The Fellowship of the Ring (91%), but was comparable with the other two. Interestingly, the Divergent franchise has the best cast of any of these movies, even though it is probably the least known. The franchise is four books, and we’ll get four movies from them.

While franchises like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter attract the same demographic, most are very different. Yes, they are all fantasy and convey drama or adventure, but the premises are certainly different. I say that as a positive. It’s not like the same script is being regurgitated over and over. Most, if not all, of these authors were writing their series around the same time. Divergent is similar to a couple of these other series. Most of the time, when I was watching it, I felt like I was watching a version of The Hunger Games meets The Maze Runner. While I was a huge fan of The Hunger Games, I did not enjoy The Maze Runner. Ironically, The Maze Runner is the only one of the abovementioned novels I have read. I thought the book was okay. It was much more enjoyable than the movie.

The talented Shailene Woodley (The Fault in Our Stars, The Descendants) makes it four out of four of her movies I have seen, and I thought she was great in each. It’s safe to say she has proven herself to be more than an up-and-coming star. She has established herself in four very different roles and now has this box-office sensation to continue building her career on. I wasn’t the hugest fan of The Fault in Our Stars, and I thought The Descendants would be better than it was. I did not enjoy The Spectacular Now, but thought it was worth seeing because of her performance.

Interestingly enough, the main reason The Spectacular Now was not very good was its leading actor, Miles Teller (Whiplash, Rabbit Hole), who is also in this movie and is very good in his role. In The Spectacular Now, however, he plays somewhat of a player who doesn’t know what he wants, and I don’t see this kid as being that kind of actor. He’s getting better. He was excellent in Whiplash, especially when he had to meet JK Simmons scene for scene in a performance that landed Simmons this year’s Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. So the young man has promise. But if The Spectacular Now had someone more believable as its lead, I would have enjoyed the movie much more than I did. So I’m still lukewarm on Teller, but I am all in on Woodley.

So I don’t know if I’m sold on the story of this film yet. I will have to wait and see how the other movies play out. If this were a standalone movie, the plot might have been closer to a 3 or 4 (no joke). And I think that needs to be considered. I view all my other movies as standalones, so why should a film in a franchise be any different just because I know there will be forthcoming movies? Much like Catching Fire, you won’t be satisfied with the ending of Divergent if you did not already know that movies were coming in the series. But as a movie meant to set up the following three stories, I am going to go out on a limb and say it did a great job. Since I have not read the novels, I had no idea where this story was headed, but it will, without a doubt, be very different than the first one. Based on the conclusion of this movie, it has to be. Unlike Catching Fire, which essentially was the same story as The Hunger Games, there is no possibility that this can happen in this franchise. And if it did, I would be finished with the series after Insurgent. I anticipate an exciting string of movies for this series.

In this movie, Beatrice (Woodley) is a teenage girl living in a futuristic and downtrodden Chicago. We learn that a great war destroyed the land. In the short time since, the survivors have divided into five factions (the Erudite are intelligent and logical, the Candor are honest, the Amity are kind and peaceful, the Abnegation are selfless, and the Dauntless are fearless). Once a year, when people turn 16, there is a Day of Choosing Ceremony. The 16-year-olds take aptitude tests that suggest which faction is best suited to them. At the Day of Choosing Ceremony, these young people pick the faction they will live with for the rest of their lives. For many, it means abandoning their family forever and living with their faction. “Faction Over Blood” is the motto of the city. So Beatrice goes one way, and her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort – The Fault In Our Stars, Carrie) goes another. From this point forward, it is about Beatrice learning her role in her new faction and ensuring she survives in it and does not end up in the sixth group, the factionless. This is equivalent to our society’s poor and unskilled. She deals with her own trials and tribulations along the way while trying to please her faction leaders, Four (Theo James – television’s Golden Boy) and Eric (Jai Courtney – A Good Day To Die Hard, I, Frankenstein). But of course, not everything is what it seems.

Aside from the actors already mentioned, the film also features three stars who do not need to be in it but make it more fun. First of all, Kate Winslet (Titanic, The Reader) is one of the ten most talented actresses alive, and the fact that she is going to spend some of her best years making this franchise makes me sad. Anybody could have played the role of Jeanine Matthews, the leader of the Erudites. Also miscast, but to a lesser extent, are Ashley Judd (Kiss the Girls, A Time to Kill) as Beatrice’s mother, Natalie, and Tony Goldwyn (Ghost, Traces of Red) as Beatrice’s father, Andrew. But, again, it makes the movie more fun when you recognize the stars.

Divergent is not the type of movie I will line up for on the opening night. It’s probably not going to be seen in theaters. But it is enjoyable and was good enough to give the forthcoming Insurgent a chance. I recommend Divergent if you like three or more of the franchises I listed.

Plot 7/10
Character Development 7.5/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 7.5/10
Cinematography 9.5/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 7/10
80%

B-

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• The Hunger Games
• The Maze Runner
• Ender’s Game
• The 5th Wave
• Ready Player One