Welcome to Blogathon week! To
celebrate my unusually large amounts of free time these holidays, I’m doing a
blogathon. Just pretend that’s a word. That means I’ll be posting every day
this week. Lets get started!
Confession time - I might be a
touch obsessed with Divergent. I scored the books for Christmas in 2012, when
no one knew they existed, and since then I've read the series 3 times, and
convinced all my friends to read them too.
It goes without saying, when we
heard about the movie we were more excited than me in Pitt St Mall. The
countdown finished on Friday, when we finally saw the long awaited Divergent
movie.
Let me set the scene for you. This
was the first screening of the school holidays, so it was filled with over excited
teenage girls. Quite a few were dressed up, like us. Our group comprised of 3
Dauntless, 2 Amity, and 2 Erudite. About 30 people were literally sitting just
outside the doors, eagerly waiting for them to open.
The doors opened, and cheering
faded to excited chatter, as the movie began. The opening scene showed the
city, and described the factions. This city is a futuristic one, where everyone
is broken up into 5 factions. These are groups based on your values. The 5 are
Erudite, the intelligent, Dauntless, the brave, Amity, the kind, Abnegation,
the selfless, and Candor, the honest. Divergent follows the story of Tris, she
doesn't fit into any of the five factions, she is Divergent. She can't be
controlled.
Ok from here in will include some
series spoilers, so only read if you've read the oh so fabulous book series.
Here's what to expect - the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Firstly the good. I was a bit
hesitant with the casting choices, but they worked really well in the movie. My
favourites were Tori, Christina, and Four. They were all exactly how I imagined
them, and totally nailed all my favourite quotes. Also, the simulation acting
was BREATH TAKING. It was seriously hard to remember they weren't actually
under simulation, just acting it. It was ridiculously well done.
Now to the bad.. I felt they tried
to jam the entire book, into 2 and s half hours, which just didn't work. It
felt a little rushed to me, especially the romance part. Tris and Four was like
'oh hey.' 'Your pretty' 'Ok you can stay in my room' 'ok ill kiss you now' the
end. At least that was included though! Half the content they cut out from the
book to the movie, seemed downright weird.
That's the ugly part. First of all,
something I was really really sad about was Al. Al and his story was positively
awful. He was not fat enough for one thing. His story was not elaborated at
all, not once did you hear him break down, and you didn't even know he liked
Tris. It was just like oh hey a random just died, and Tris acts all dramatically,
and the audience is like wait. Who's that again? So disappointing.
Also, Edward isn't in the movie at
all I don't think. There is no hardcore bullying or harassment, and a serious
lack of eye stabbing. Which may have been good, because I'm pretty squeamish...
But there was one major thing that
messed with my head. There was no visiting day. Yes. Let me just say that
again. There was no visiting day in the movie. In the book, the visiting day is
crucial, Tris's mum tells her she can't visit Caleb, so that's how you first
know about the controversy. Then, she says go tell Caleb to research that
thing, so that's how you piece together the dodgy 'trackers', and that's how
the piece together the whole uprising. But no. There is no visiting day. Her
mum just randomly appears, and then she just randomly visits Caleb. So yes,
that was ugly.
All up, I didn't think the movie
was bad, but it wasn't award winning either. On a scale from Mean Girls 2, to
Hunger games, I’d give it a 3.5 stars If you haven't read the books, I'm going
to go against what everyone tells you, and say WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST. Then,
read the books. You will be presently surprised.
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