DIVERGENT, the movie: A review

If you haven't read my prior post before this one, please take a few minutes to do so. I'll wait......back? Good. Because of the mediocre reviews and sucky preview trailers, I wasn't in any hurry to see DIVERGENT, so I skipped opening week. I was pretty skeptical about how it would fair at the box office. It came in second last week, way stronger than some of the recent YA adaptations. Nice! I decided to check it out today.

Let's get right to it. I enjoyed it---a lot! Dare I say, I may have even liked it more than The Hunger Games! Sacrilegious, I know. I'm still trying to decide.

I thought people that hadn't read the book would be confused, but no, the main character, Tris, explained the premise in a voice-over, Bella style, and it was pretty interesting. It's been a couple of years since I read the arc, so I had forgotten some elements, but things came back pretty quickly. DIVERGENT has much more action than I expected, too. It moved at a steady pace and kept you on your toes about what was coming next.

What really surprised me was the romantic element. DIVERGENT did a great job with the romantic tension! The film played the young girls in the audience like a fiddle. I never heard girls swoon, titter and gasp so loud...lol...

I thought it was so cute that Zoe Kravitz and her dad are in competing dystopian films: She in DIVERGENT and he, Lenny Kravitz, in The Hunger Games.

I'm really looking forward to the next installment. The reviews didn't do this film justice. Go see it!

Toodles, y'all!

DIVERGENT: Will it hit the sweet spot?

After the cinematic glory that was TWILIGHT and now The Hunger Games, YA books that have hit the movie theater have landed with a heavy thud: Beautiful Creatures, I Am Number Four, Mortal Instruments, The Host, Vampire Academy...there may be more, but that's all I can think of right now.

I happen to have really enjoyed Mortal Instruments, but it was hardly a blockbuster. I wonder if they'll even make part two. I'm a fan of I Am Number Four, too, but since that was out in 2010, I guess they won't be filming the continuation of that saga either! Someone on Twitter was begging people to go see Vampire Academy because she loved both book and movie so much, she wanted it to have a good box office opening. It had terrible reviews.

I plan to go see DIVERGENT because I read and enjoyed the book, but if I had to depend on the movie trailers and previews that have been advertising it, I would not be that drawn to it quite frankly. Based on the marketing I've seen, I wouldn't really understand what the story is about. If people haven't read the book, I question whether they would rush out to see it.

This is the complete opposite of my experience with TWILIGHT. I didn't even know it was a book, initially. I saw the previews in the theater five months before the release date and was immediately intrigued. I thought Edward was some sort of alien or something...lol...I made up my mind right away to see it when it came out. I still didn't know it was a book until I was sitting in the theater on opening night and commented to the girl next to me about how packed the place was. I couldn't understand it! You could barely find a seat. That's when she told me it was a book series and how much she enjoyed them. I ended up leaving the theater that night after the show and headed straight to Barnes & Noble to become part of the TWILIGHT madness...lol...Hey, it was fun while it lasted and I make no apologies. I'll always remember being a part of that pop culture moment fondly. :-)



As for DIVERGENT...will it strike box office gold? I hope I'm wrong, but I kind of doubt it. I understand the studio producing it, which is the same one behind TWILIGHT, I believe, has high expectations. How do you think it will do? We'll all know in two more days....

Toodles, y'all