I am not a technical critic. I just want a movie to move me, to give me an intellectual experience, and excitement. Watching a good movie is like a spiritual experience, you feel like you became richer. I know that it came out about the same time as Hunger Games. However, this movie, somehow I could relate much more to it. And the chemistry was very very good. I want a relationship like that. A strong man and a strong woman. At the time, this was one of the very few, for me the first such movie, where both of the had a sane mental and charismatic strength and they were both striving to make it a better world. Just an uplifting movie for me. The other movies in the series I liked much less, but this first one of the Divergent Series is great I think.

I just made an imdb account because the bad reviews here broke my heart and I felt like adding a positive voice, although I really understand some of critics. Firstly I have to say that, even though I watched it on a laptop's screen, I was deeply immerged in this movie, forgetting everything around me, something which nowadays rarely happens to me. The movie started very strong and the hallucination scene was absurdly interesting and exciting. The concept of the five factions was executed well without feeling childish. Although the world felt a bit unrealistic theoretically, which didn't matter in this case because it served the story very well. You could really see that it is also a wink to our own reality. I really liked the design choices of fashion,architecture and weapons. But the whole story felt a bit rushed though and this movie would lent itself perfectly for a serie which would give it more time to unfold its beauty. (edit: I see it's a trilogy, perfect) I think this movie is just perfect for anyone who loves psychologicy, mature sci-fi worlds and can just even relate a bit to one of the two main characters. In a world full of bland unoriginal fantasy movies filled with bad american jokes, this one really stands out for me as a special one. I just feel bad for the people that couldn't experience the empathy with the characters, as you have really missed something.

Warning! Spoilers.So Ashley Judd wants a gun now? How and where did you get that gun, Ashley? Let's see if you learned anything from this story. Not going to bet on it, though.Another teen-hero story complete with plenty of plot holes, girl-power and silly love interests. People are herded into 5 different fractions to fit into a really dumb dystopian society. Some people "diverge" and do not fit in. One fraction naturally wants all power, so they try to wipe out the fraction that as been ruling by tradition. Cue young hero to expose it all.Perhaps workable as a popcorn movie for the younger crowd, however adults or younger people with some sort of attention span will be bored out of their minds.Passable performances by the two young main characters, poor/sad performances by the "big names", specially by Ashley Judd, but she never were that much of an actress anyway.

Summit Entertainments LLC presents in Spring 2014 the first ""Divergent" movie directed by Neil Burger, who had been a solid choice for this franchise establishment in the shadow of a largely successful "Hunger Games" Series awaiting its split in two third installment for an November release of the same year. Even by putting the "Divergent" movies as far from releasing third and fourth "Hunger Games" movies, the success could not be match by producer duo Douglas Wick & Lucy Fisher, too complex had become the load of characters involved of creating the story around Beatrice aka Tris, portrayed by Shailene Woodley steady raising since Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" (2011), who has become the chosen one to train full-contact combat and weaponry in one of the five factions of a dystopian Chicago city behind walls as novelty written by twenty-something year old Veronica Roth.Director Neil Burger, responsible for Part 1 "Divergent" did well by restraining his cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler to establish the characters furthermore Tris nemesis Jeanine, performed in freezing powerhouse mode by Kate Winslet, who puts the character of Tris in the first two movies of the series in imprisoned situation, starting put from conference room, to fighting Tris love interest the character of Four aka Tibirius in a corporate hallway before coming full circle in Director Robert Schwentke's Part 2 called "Insurgent", where a developed dreamscape serum gets used to confront inner fear challenges towards the ultimate core of Tris' existence, marvelously paced character intergrations in dissolving urban CGI environment, which raised the bar for the entire production in part 3 called "Allegiant".Director Neil Burger had been able to restrain himself of focusing the mass of characters surrounding Tris in the hand-to-hand combat environment of "Divergent", keeping the coverage steady in a classic approach of three to four angles per scene with an occasional finesse of dutch angles, character-emphasizing color forces, but mainly neglecting connecting dolly-shots to deny "Divergent" being a visual feast as reference films, starting out from "The Matrix" (1999) over "Equilibrium" (2002) to the all-to-well known "Inception" (2010).A fact Director Robert Schwentke used as alibi to let cinematographer move the Digital Camera Alexa manufactured by Arri in Munich, Germany with all gadgets from cranes, jibs, dolly and Steadicam actions, justifying a 220 Million U.S. Dollars budget for two movies in one production. Nevertheless through all the technical directions, Robert Schwentke were able to use, he could not convince actress Shailene Woodley to create a breakout performance in the role of Tris, coming out of her skin in one of the many action scenes to share at least one mind-blowing confrontation, preferably with left-alone potential of actor Miles Teller, who had not once the chance to explore the dark side of the character of Peter in order to become the most hostile beast in part 3 "Allegiant" after the character of Jeanine gets shot in cold blood, keeping it movie historically speaking between Naomi Watts & Kate Winslet before the credits roll.The "Divergent" Series could have been more then just 2nd rate Science-Fiction in the years to come. The two involved Directors had been competent and researched enough to concentrate on a solid cast ready-to-go beyond the ordinary then dealing all-day long with demanding special effect departments, which in the case of Robert Schwentke made the conclusion sequence of "Allegiant" look like a unforgiving, draining flush of everything what had been built carefully out-going by Director Neil Burger's novel-translated character arcs for Tris, Four and Peter, which must have needed ultimately the inner core of a new generation clash between Shailene Woodley fighting off menacing Miles Teller and final second hit-rescuing Theo James to an surprisingly deep darkening score by Joseph Trapanese.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)