Divergent

Another book to movie review for my small group of followers:
My usual disclaimers. These are my opinions. I will not apologize for hating Twilight... etc. etc.

I have read my share of dystopian young adult novels. Anyone who knows me knows that the Hunger Games are my favorite, by far. But the second series that I recommend when people ask me about dystopian, is probably Divergent.

I had some concerns about the movie, number one being that it was produced by Summit, which was the company who brought us the Twilight series. We all know how I feel about that series. My hope was that since being acquired by Lions Gate, Summit would have been improved. Also, as was pointed out to me by a friend, Divergent was better than Twilight to begin with. My second major misgiving was Theo James as Four. I had seen some early Trailers and thought that he looked way too old, especially when paired with Shailene Woodley (who plays Tris). I also don't find him as attractive as other people must.  But much with Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, Theo James grows on you.  I think he did an excellent job of portraying someone who is trying for a hardened exterior while hiding a softer inside. His ability to act helped me overlook the fact that he was not the way that I pictured him.

The movie followed the book quite well, with a couple of exceptions. I think that the PG-13 rating requirement and the time constraints are to blame for most of the alterations to the plot. So, I am willing to overlook most of them. They left out a lot of the fights during training. They left out the girl who didn't make the jump off the train. They didn't show Tris getting stuck on the Ferris Wheel. Those are the ones I will overlook for the reasons above. So, the one that disappointed me that I thought really should have been there was that they did little to develop the side characters. The worst of this was Al. First off, he didn't look anything like I thought he should. One of my friends with me mentioned after that she kept getting Al and Will mixed up. Not good. Then you didn't feel the full on betrayal when he is one of the ones that tries to throw Tris over the edge.

Oh, and I didn't hate Peter like I did in the book. And they changed the ending some, throwing Jeannine in where Four was supposed to be controlling the simulation.

With all of this said, I think I would like to make a statement to movie makers. I think that these books that have a huge fan base could handle longer movies. Speaking for the fans of Divergent and Hunger Games, we would be willing to sit through a three hour movie if it meant you could include more of the plot of our favorite books.