Divergent: proof that not all books should be made into movies

If you are anything like me, when you watch a movie that is based on a book you like, you hope and pray that the filmmakers will stay as true to the book as possible.  Unfortunately for Divergent this is exactly what they did.

While I thought the concept of the book was pretty good I felt that overall it fell flat.  The characters start off very underdeveloped, the background is really vague, and there is a general lack of emotion.  However, as the book reached the halfway mark it did start to pick up a bit and turned out to be not too bad. Certainly not the best I’ve read, but also not the worst.  When I finally got around to seeing the movie version I didn’t really have high hopes for it, but I thought that if the filmmakers were able to visually show some more depth to the main character, Tris, that was really lacking in the book, then it would end up being more enjoyable.  But for the first time that I can remember, a director stayed so true to the original story that it transferred all of the books flaws onto the big screen.

The general idea of the story is that it is a futuristic society that has survived…something.  This something is never explained but whatever it was tore the world apart, forcing the survivors to break society into factions based upon their personal traits. These traits become their religion, political views, and lifestyles all rolled into one. They live and die by them. They each have cool names but they basically boil down to bravery, knowledge, honesty, peaceful, and selfless. When a child turns 16 they are tested to see, psychologically, which faction they should join, and on the following day they choose which faction they will be in for the rest of their lives. If they do not pass initiation (though not all factions have pass or fail standards), or for some reason fail to choose, then they will become faction-less, which is basically the poor, underclass of the society.

Our protagonist, Beatrice (later "Tris"), tests as being Divergent, meaning that she did not fall into a single category but rather three. Because you are supposed to be all or nothing for just one faction, this is a bad thing. The only thing this adds to the beginning of the story is to put pressure on Beatrice because she wanted the test to tell her who she is definitively.  Since it doesn’t, this causes a lot of anxiety for her that lasts about 23 seconds and then she joins the brave faction "Divergent".  She is warned however that she cannot let anyone find out that she is Divergent because it’s dangerous... or icky, maybe contagious… I don’t know, it’s just supposed to be bad, but they are really vague.  The rest of the story centers around her trying to fit into the new faction, avoid failing initiation, and trying hard not to fall in love.  I won’t go into too much detail because, spoilers.

The biggest problem with the story is the complete lack of emotion.  Tris (Beatrice changes her name when she joins her new faction), is completely void of character in the beginning and then transitions to a brave alpha persona with literally no events that cause the change.  Eventually they do add plot devices to make her grow and change but it’s too little too late because, even though she grows, she remains rather bland.  At one point she is forced to face her biggest fears, and she just kind of shrugs them off as if she was more mildly irritated by them.  What is worse is that it spreads to every other character. Each consecutive character is just as bland as the next, with the exception of, maybe, her mother played by Ashley Judd, but she is given so little screen time it doesn’t matter.

The story itself also becomes pretty ridiculous at times. For example, when you first get to your faction you can choose a new name for yourself.  Later, at the end of initiation, you will learn how many fears you have.  But there is one character whose name is the number of fears he has, Four. How did  he already know how many fears he had at the beginning of initiation? Who knows. There are tons of things like this. What happened that caused the world to be like this? Why does everyone conform to it yet being Divergent is abnormal? How does Tris become an expert marksman just because someone makes a joke about her being a bad shot? And non of these are ever answered.

Overall, I can’t really recommend this movie unless you are either a massive sci-fi fan, a tween with an obsession for the series, or you’re bored and the copy was free. It’s not a truly bad movie, it’s just not special in anyway.

Marvel's Almost Perfect Franchise

After decades of transitioning comic book heroes from the page to the screen, Marvel seems to have finally properly translated the immersive comic book experience to the film genre.  The great thing about comic books is that they give you a whole world of entertainment, providing a wide spectrum of characters which can appeal to a large audience.  The reader then can choose to follow the characters they like and pretty much bypass the ones they don't.  Also, you get the added perks of having some of your favorites pop up in other story lines further immersing you in their world. Take the current Avengers line up for instance.  You get Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and, of course, Nick Fury. The first four already have their own independent story lines.  The Hulk may not have a current boot with actor Mark Ruffalo, but they are continuing the basic story ark of the Edward Norton version and his own film seems inevitable at this point. Widow and Hawkeye also have their own projects floating in the rumor mill, and Fury is in everything, including the television series Marvel's Agents of Shield (even if only in spirit, so far).  So lets say you love the Avengers but you just don't care for the Norse story line of Thor, you can still follow the other characters in their individual movies as well as the Shield television series. It all seems perfect...except for just one thing.

Marvel seems really set on having the individual films stand as far apart from the Avengers series as they can.  Sure there is a lot of plot points regarding the Avengers being thrown around but nothing that really shows on screen.  Now I'm not saying that every movie should turn into a miniaturized version of the Avengers, but at times omitting the other Avengers throws off the current story line. One of the best qualities of the books is that you get these awesome crossovers that usually occur when one character is on his/her own and finds him/herself up against insurmountable odds, and then is saved by the unexpected arrival of a comrade.  This is really lacking in the newest round of movies.

*SPOILERS FOR IRON MAN  3 AND THOR 2*

First up is Iron Man 3.  This film tried so hard to ignore the Avengers yet still be almost a direct result of it at the same time.  Tony Stark is suffering some serious PTSD from almost dying in New York.  He's having panic attacks, insomnia, and basically losing control of his life.  The main plot device, however, is being driven by a group of super human terrorists being led by the Mandarin. While that plot line has its own problems, the one I'm going to talk about is what happens after the Mandarin destroys Stark's mansion. He finds himself alone in middle America with no suit and no resources.  His beloved was just attacked, he has no idea if she is safe or not (totally not) and he has almost no ability to protect himself until his suit is fixed. Now, if only he had the ability to contact a large secret agency with the kind of security forces that could help him and protect Pepper. You know, like Shield! One call and he could have Captain America by his side, Widow securing Pepper, and Hawkeye putting an arrow into the Mandarin. Fury gives a speech and we wait for the Easter eggs in the credits!

I can totally understand why they would want to keep Stark standing on his own, but calling in help is what the given situation called for.  The options are to change the script to a different scenario in which this wouldn't have been the best choice, modify it a little to include the Avengers without showing them too much, or keep plowing forward with the script and hope it doesn't get awkward ... It gets awkward. After a few scenes of showing how resourceful Stark can be with almost nothing, he eventually gets his suit back, or, more specifically, suits. You see, since Stark can't sleep at night he has been staying up making tons of new suits, all of which can fully operate without a pilot. But, of course, he won't call on them for help until the absolute last minute, not even when the freaking President is kidnapped!  The whole end is a train wreck on its own, but I believe it all starts with the choice not to incorporate other characters earlier.  Let's say Stark called Shield and refuses any direct help but asks for them to protect Pepper. You can now let Stark play Macgyver and have Widow or Hawkeye find that Pepper is gone and add some filler so the rest of the movie isn't so forced.

Next up is Thor 2: the Dark World.  While some parts of this movie are great, all in all it is just inferior and not very well thought out. It's good for "popcorn-watching" but that's about it.  It doesn't fall into the same traps as Iron Man 3, but it still has its own set of problems. Like how even though Shield scientist Erik Selvig is going crazy as hell, Shield itself makes no appearance. Not even when a giant space ship lands and all of time and space gets turned upside down!  Realistically, they should have been alerted as soon as Thor comes back to check on his girlfriend; they tend to notice when doorways between worlds get opened, you know. But, again, they put their heads in the sand and plow forward without letting anyone else into the party.

*MAJOR CAPTAIN AMERICA 2 SPOILERS AHEAD*

Then we have The Winter Soldier. I will start by saying this movie is awesome.  It's the only one of the separate story lines that effectively integrates real drama into the story. That, in conjunction with excellent action sequences and moving the story along with decent plot changes, made for a phenomenal watch.  But, unfortunately, they did make some of the action so overwhelming that it's hard to over-look the fact that the other Avengers are not there. Nick Fury gets freaking killed and nobody shows up!!! WTF guys, suddenly everyone is heartless as all hell about the guy.  Plus, you have massive shootouts tearing up the town and nobody cares. Hell, at one point Captain only has three people he can trust ('cause, you know, it's not like he is a member of a group of bad ass super heroes or anything) and he decides they should go after 3 massive aerial killing battle stations and take down Hydra by themselves. You might argue that maybe the others were busy. Nope, while the end battle is tearing up Washington, one of the targeting computers actually zooms in on the name Anthony Stark sitting in his office on the top floor of Stark tower! So clearly he is there and aware of the battle. This is one of the moments where it would be really easy to CGI the suit in and have Downey voice over a few lines while he backs them up in New York (the real battle rages over Washington). This way Cap still gets majority of the glory and you build more on the unity of the group.

It is important to note that the independent movies are not really covered under the control of Joss Whedon. Joss really understands the importance of crossing over, he has displayed it repeatedly in his other projects (Buffy and Angel, etc.) and he almost always utilizes the same actors in new roles to keep familiarity with the audience. You can really see this in Agents of Shield, which he is directly involved with. So far this season we have seen a cross over with Sif from Thor, the introduction of Deathloc, as well as hinting at Ms Marvel.  The crossovers are making the series better and better.  Also, so far the show has integrated itself with the releases of the new movies and their story lines. So one can hope that, with the upcoming Age of Ultron and Ant-man movie, we will see an increase in crossovers. Interestingly enough, the release day for Captain America 3 has been announced and it will be the same day as Superman vs Batman, so it would be a really good idea to up the super hero line up if Marvel wants to compete.