So here I am, trying to get on the blogging train by reviewing one of several new YA books made into a movie. Be brave and let's go.
As far as YA novel adaptions go, Divergent was pretty good. It worked well as a stand alone movie and tried to keep to the book as much as possible. It was a heck of a lot more faithful than those ridiculous Percy Jackson movies, but not quite as book-synced as Hunger Games was. That being said, there are a lot of things that Divergent totally did right, but several it messed up on. Here are some things I noticed.
1.) The paint ball guns. If you've read Divergent you no doubt recall the epic capture the flag paint ball scene. If you've seen the movie, you no doubt recall that no one uses paintball guns. They use painful dart guns, designed to imitate a real gunshot wound. Lovely.
2.) The ferris wheel scene, however, was perfect. It stayed faithful to the end and I have no complaints. it was awesome.
3.) Beating the fear. The point of the last stage of Dauntless training was getting over your fears by submerging yourself in them and trying not to totally freak out. While the Dauntless int eh movie stated this, they didn't put it into practice. When Tris is in Four's fear landscape and suggests they calm down and jump off a building to conquer the fear, Four rejects this, saying, "That's how a Divergent would do it," and begins to lecture her on how to conquer fear like a Dauntless--basically running away from your fears and doing everything in your power to stop whatever's causing your fears. No, no. Don't face your fears, all you Dauntless, just get yourself out of the scary situation and that'll be great.
4.) Not enough Uriah.
5.) How old are they? In the book Tris is 16 and Four is 18, but let's be honest, Four looks like he's at in his mid twenties. So did Tris and Four have their ages bumped up, is Four a bit creepy, or does he just look like a very old 18 year old? Leave a comment.
6.) How is Tris doing that? Super human evolution? So Tris get's shot in the arm, right? If so, how come she's running at full speed, firing guns, punching people, raising her injured arm, letting people touch her injured arm, doing a bunch of fancy wrestling, and pulling herself onto a train? And how come Jeanine can still move her fingers and totally function with a knife in her hand? Are humans suppose to have evolved enough that a gun shot wound is no biggie and a knife in the hand is just a mild annoyance? Seriously.
7.) Mrs. Priors death is not nearly as bad ass as it was in the books. She doesn't go out in a blaze of glory after sacrificing herself in an awesome way for her daughter. She gets shot when shes' not paying attention.
8.) Mr. Prior, however, ran in front of the baddies with his gun out and took those zombies down. Boo-yeah!
Overall it was a great film and a pretty good adaption. It's not Hunger Games, but not Percy Jackson, and it was better than the Mortal Instruments, so that's great. Yep....
What did all of you think of the movie? One star or five? Leave a comment.
Be brave.
Yeah, the missing paintball guns bugged me, but not nearly as much as poor Mrs. Prior. She's so much cooler than that! And the actors...just...ugh. Theo James is 28 and Shailene Woodley is 22. That made her, ahem, fear landscape scene creepy.
ReplyDeleteOverall though, I'm glad they left in most of the characters and followed the plot well. Plus, the costumes look how they're described in the book. And I like how Tris keeps seeing her reflection right before something scary happens.