Joking aside, it is astonishing just how much the faction system
feels like a rip-off of Harry Potter (the
sorting hat-like selection process) and The
Hunger Games, the broken city of Chicago in which the film takes place resembling
a slightly less flamboyant version of Panem, complete with futuristic security
systems and a high-speed train connecting one end of the city to the other. Also,
in a post-Hunger Games world, it’s
hard to ignore the fact that Beatrice (later referred to as ‘Tris’ to assume
her independence within a new faction) is no Katniss Everdeen. She has none of
the intuition, determination or charisma of the role that Jennifer Lawrence now
dominates and that is a problem.
Woodley’s lead performance being the blank-faced shambles
that it is prevents any kind of investment, and I spent most of the first half
of the film wondering how a girl who was born into a faction that chastises
vanity always manages to have perfect hair and make-up. Even the supporting
cast cannot solve the problem: Theo James (who I will always remember as the
guy who spent the last few minutes of The
Inbetweeners Movie with poo on his upper lip) spends the entire film
staring at everyone from under his eyebrows, and Kate Winslet as the shadowy
head of the Erudite faction just looks bored all the way through. But the most
problematic thing about the performances is that as a result, the relationship
that begins to develop between Tris and Four (James) feels rushed,
unbelievable, and forced.
The pacing is all over the place, the film dedicating around
half an hour of its already stretched 139 minute run time to the first stage of Tris’ training, which
means that the more important and hard-hitting elements towards the end are simultaneously rushed and make the film feel even more drawn-out. The
set design too is all over the place, with seemingly no logical connection
between locations, the atmosphere switching between dark caves lit by harsh red
light and bright exterior rooftops despite the fact that the story is
supposedly set within the confines of a single city.
The soundtrack is an oddly dis-jointed mixture of musical
score and songs, with composer Junkie XL sinking yet further in my estimation
by apparently just re-using his score from 300:
Rise of an Empire, which itself was just Hans Zimmer’s Man of Steel score minus the brass section. The songs themselves
(minus M83’s rather uplifting ‘I Need You’) are just a depressing reminder that
in this day and age, ‘From and Inspired By’ albums are being prized over actual
film scores.
Now I can’t deny when I left the screening there were some
teenage members of the audience who appeared to have enjoyed themselves, and
were in deep discussion surrounding the inevitable sequel that will be spawned
from the next book in the trilogy, but I just left feeling rather empty. Divergent desperately wants to be the
next Hunger Games but falls so short
on everything besides visual flair and unobtrusive sound design that it doesn’t seem fit to scavenge the
left-overs.
1.5 Stars
1.5 Stars
