Books adapted into movies are rough—if you’ve read the book, you can’t help but compare the book to the movie. If you’ve seen the movie and then try to read the book, it can be difficult to finish because you already know the ending. I’m always nervous to watch the movie of a book I enjoy because it tends to ruin it.
This wasn’t the case with Divergent, though. Granted, I read Divergent last year, so perhaps I’m forgetting a few bits.
Casting is one part that can bother me when watching a book-turned-movie—either the characters are completely off, fall a little bit short, or are 100% spot on. While I don’t think I quite pictured Shailene Woodley as Tris, I think that Theo James is perfect as Four. Scratch that. Theo James would be perfect as anyone.
The movie stayed fairly close to the book, but the primary part that I was annoyed with was the lack of timeline and friendship with Christina. In the book, Tris has a pretty close-knit group of friends, the closest of whom being Christina. The reason it’s so difficult for Tris to kill Will is because he’s dating Christina—and Tris was good friends with Will. The boys that they cast as Dauntless initiates all looked the same, too, which would make it difficult for non-readers.
There was also a lack of timeline—it felt like everything happened within a matter of a few days, whereas it took months in the book. Because of this, everything felt sped up and forced, especially the relationship between Tris and Four.
I get that it’s difficult to turn a 300-page dystopian science fiction novel into a two-hour long movie, but I think it definitely could have been better.
I’ll still watch the sequel when it’s released, and this movie wasn’t terrible—I’d say 3/5 stars!
lifebetweenreads.com 