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The divergent series: allegiant.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 8 Reviews
• Kids Say 49 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Mediocre third installment still violent; strays from book.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Allegiant is the second-to-last movie in the Divergent series. Based on the first half of the final book in Veronica Roth's best-selling trilogy, the adaptation continues the saga of Tris (Shailene Woodley) and her partner in love and war, Four (Theo James). The violence is…

Why Age 14+?

People die via gunshot wounds (including execution-style murders at close range)

Several kisses, a couple of them passionate. Four tells Tris: "I wish we could b

A couple of uses of "ass," "s--t," and "s--tless," plus insults like "stiff," "d

Any Positive Content?

While previous films in the series dealt with identity and destiny, this install

Tris is (as always) courageous, but in this installment she's not very intuitive

Violence & Scariness

People die via gunshot wounds (including execution-style murders at close range), but there's a conspicuous lack of blood, so occasionally it's unclear whether characters have been killed or just left unconscious (in some cases, it's obvious, but in others it's ambiguous). Fist-fighting and vehicle crashes injure/kill characters. A serum/gas that erases people's memories is unleashed on the population, frightening them and immediately affecting some of them. Lots of danger/peril.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Several kisses, a couple of them passionate. Four tells Tris: "I wish we could be alone" before an intense kiss. Two different shower scenes show brief silhouettes of Four's bare chest/back and Tris' entire back -- and then a dark shadow of her whole figure from the back.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A couple of uses of "ass," "s--t," and "s--tless," plus insults like "stiff," "damaged," "ass kisser."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

While previous films in the series dealt with identity and destiny, this installment explores issues of diversity and discrimination. Tris' crusade encourages people to look beyond what divides them and seek to work together.

Positive Role Models

Tris is (as always) courageous, but in this installment she's not very intuitive about others' intentions. Four is clear-headed and brave, but he's also hot-headed. Caleb redeems himself by finally being loyal to Tris as his only remaining family. Tris and Four have a loving relationship in which they respect each other, even when they don't agree.

Parents need to know that Allegiant is the second-to-last movie in the Divergent series . Based on the first half of the final book in Veronica Roth's best-selling trilogy , the adaptation continues the saga of Tris ( Shailene Woodley ) and her partner in love and war, Four ( Theo James ). The violence is on par with the second film , but there's a conspicuous lack of blood, even during execution-style murders in which someone is shot at close range. There's slightly less romance in this one, with a few passionate kisses but no love scene; two nonsexual shower scenes show Tris' silhouetted nude backside and Four's bare chest. Strong language is infrequent but includes a few uses of "s--t" and "ass." Tris, while still unfailingly courageous, makes a mistake this time by blindly trusting someone whom viewers will be able to tell is shady; Four continues to be a brave, if brooding, boyfriend to her. Readers, be aware: Many of the movie plot's details are quite different than in the book. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (8)
• Kids say (49)

Based on 8 parent reviews

Allegiant is poorly done

What's the story.

ALLEGIANT wastes no time picking up shortly after the events of Insurgent , with Factionless leader Evelyn ( Naomi Watts ) holding show trials for Jeanine's treasonous Erudite and Dauntless followers in front of surprisingly bloodthirsty crowds. Before Tris' ( Shailene Woodley ) brother, Caleb ( Ansel Elgort ), can be executed like the other accused collaborators, the siblings, Four ( Theo James ), Christina ( Zoe Kravitz ), and Peter ( Miles Teller ) -- who blackmails his way into the group -- scale the wall to see what's outside their city of Chicago. What they find is an invisible "camera wall," beyond which is an area controlled by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. The Bureau's area leader, David ( Jeff Daniels ), and his employees reveal that the the Faction-based society is in fact a generations-old experiment to see whether humanity's "damaged" genes could heal themselves without genetic modification. The Bureau monitors the Chicago experiment with round-the-clock surveillance. Tris, of course, is deemed genetically "pure," while the other Divergents (including Four) -- and everyone else -- are labeled damaged. David insists on daily one-on-ones with Tris to study her, while a suspicious Four realizes that the Bureau doesn't care about the folks back home.

Is It Any Good?

Something has broken in this adaptation of Veronica Roth's final book ; despite strong leads, the third installment ranges from passably mediocre to cringe-inducingly awful. Although the trilogy's last book suffered from a dual point of view and other flaws, the adaptation is nowhere near as engrossing. Yes, you always expect that an adaptation will stray somewhat from its source material, but Allegiant will leave book fans perplexed about what's going on, since so much is completely different -- not just in the plot, but also in terms of character development. (It's practically impossible to believe that, despite having run out of anything to say, there's still one more adaptation left to come in the film franchise.)

While many readers have enjoyed the book trilogy as much as The Hunger Games , the same isn't true of the film adaptations. The comparison between the franchises is apt: Both are dystopian trilogies with capable, intelligent heroines who aren't afraid to fight for what they believe. But despite gifted actors like Woodley, this series got stuck with lackluster directors. Between the subpar special effects (the terrible green-screen backgrounds are especially amateurish) and the laughable extras who don't know how to believably carry a crowd scene, Allegiant is a mess that can't even be saved by Tris and Four's romance. Even their love story hits a snag this time.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Allegiant . What purpose does it serve? Is it less impactful because there's no blood, even in cases of execution-style murders? Does exposure to violent media desensitize kids to violence?

Discuss who's a role model in the story, and who isn't. What do you think of Tris' and Four's decisions in this movie? What makes them worth rooting for?

How does Tris demonstrate courage ? Why is that an important character strength?

Fans of the book : Is the movie a faithful adaptation? What differences did you appreciate, and which scenes or lines from the book did you miss?

Movie Details

• In theaters : March 18, 2016
• On DVD or streaming : July 12, 2016
• Cast : Shailene Woodley , Theo James , Miles Teller
• Director : Robert Schwentke
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Summit Entertainment
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Book Characters , Great Girl Role Models
• Run time : 121 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense violence and action, thematic elements, and some partial nudity
• Last updated : May 14, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

The Divergent Series: Insurgent

The Hunger Games

Divergent, Book 1

Divergent trilogy, related topics.

• Book Characters
• Great Girl Role Models

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

"Divergent"

“Divergent” is all about identity—about searching your soul and determining who you are and how you fit in as you emerge from adolescence to adulthood. So it’s all too appropriate that the film version of the wildly popular young adult novel struggles a bit to assert itself as it seeks to appeal to the widest possible audience.

It’s the conundrum so many of these types of books face as they become pop-culture juggernauts and film franchises: which elements to keep to please the fervent fans and which to toss in the name of maintaining a lean, speedy narrative? The “Harry Potter” and “Hunger Games” movies—which “Divergent” resembles in myriad ways—were mostly successful in finding that balance.

In bringing the first novel of Veronica Roth’s best-selling trilogy to the screen, director Neil Burger (“ Limitless “) and screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor have included key moments and images but tweaked others to streamline the mythology and move the story along. The results can be thrilling but the film as a whole feels simultaneously overlong and emotionally truncated.

Folks who’ve read the book will probably be satisfied with the results, while those unfamiliar with the source material may dismiss it as derivative and inferior. (Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: “Divergent” takes place in a rigidly structured, dystopian future where one extraordinary girl will serve either as its destroyer or its savior.) But the performances—namely from stars Shailene Woodley and Theo James and Kate Winslet in a juicy supporting role—always make the movie watchable and often quite engaging.

In the fenced-off remnants of a post-war Chicago 100 years from now, society has been broken down into five factions—groups of people arranged by a primary, defining trait. The Amity are happy, hippie farmers who dress in shades of sorbet. The Candor run the judicial system and value truth about all else. The Erudite are the serious-minded scholars who wear conservative, dark blue. The Abnegation are known for their selflessness and modesty. And the pierced-and-tatted Dauntless are the brave soldiers who protect the city from … who knows what? Whatever the perceived threat is, it requires them to run, scream and practice parkour wherever they go.

Woodley’s Beatrice Prior is a member of the Abnegation alongside her brother, Caleb ( Ansel Elgort ), and their parents ( Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn ). They dress in drab colors, eat simply and are only allowed to steal a quick glance in the mirror once every three months when it’s time for a haircut. Basically, they’re no fun, and Beatrice has a wild streak in her that she’s been forced to suppress.  

When she undergoes the aptitude test required of all teens, which determines which faction is the best reflection of one’s true nature, her results are inconclusive. She’s got pieces of a few different places in her, which makes her what’s known as Divergent, which makes her dangerous. Thinking for yourself is a naughty thing in this world, apparently; plus, the angsty inner conflict that rages within Beatrice is something to which the target audience for the book (and the movie) surely can relate.

At the annual Choosing Ceremony, where the teens use their test results to pick the faction they want to join for the rest of their lives—like the last night of sorority rush, mixed with the “Harry Potter” sorting hat—Beatrice dares to choose Dauntless. This means she can never see her family again. (Man, the rules are strict in dystopian futures.) But it also means she gets to train to unleash the bad-ass that’s been lurking inside her all along.

Renaming herself Tris, our heroine must learn how to fight, shoot, jump from moving trains, throw knives and control her mind in a series of harrowing simulations, all while competing against a couple dozen other initiates in a demanding ranking system. Eric (a coolly intimidating Jai Courtney ) is the merciless Dauntless leader who’s taking the faction—which was founded on the notion of noble courage—in a more militant and vicious direction.

But the hunky trainer who goes by the name Four (James) is the one who will have a greater impact on the woman Tris will become. Quietly and generically brooding at first, James reveals more depth and shading to his conflicted character as the story’s stakes increase. He and Woodley have an easy chemistry with each other, but the romance that took its time and smoldered on the page feels a bit rushed on the screen.

Similarly, the supporting figures who had identifiable personalities in the book mostly blend into the background here, including Tris’ best friend, Christina ( Zoe Kravitz ). But it is extremely amusing to see Miles Teller , who played Woodley’s first love last year in the wonderful “ The Spectacular Now ,” serve as her enemy here as the conniving fellow initiate Peter. The smart-alecky Teller is also the only actor here who gets to have much fun. With the exception of a few major set pieces—the zip-line ride from the top of the John Hancock Center, for example—”Divergent” is a rather dark and heavy endeavor.

Woodley, though, by virtue of the sheer likability of her presence, keeps you hanging on, keeps you rooting for her. She may not have the blazing, rock-star power of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in “ The Hunger Games ,” but there’s a subtlety and a naturalism to her performance that make her very accessible and appealing. And when she needs to crank it up and kick some butt—as she does in a climactic scene with Winslet as the evil Erudite leader who’s hell-bent on eradicating Divergents and maintaining control—she doesn’t oversell it.

Plus, there could be worse role models for the eager adolescent audience than a young woman who’s thoughtful, giving and strong—all at once. The inevitable sequel will show us what else she’s got in her.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Maggie Q as Tori
• Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews
• Ray Stevenson as Marcus Eaton
• Ansel Elgort as Caleb Prior
• Theo James as Tobias "Four" Eaton
• Shailene Woodley as Beatrice Prior / Tris
• Zoë Kravitz as Christina
• Miles Teller as Peter
• Jai Courtney as Eric
• Evan Daugherty
• Neil Burger
• Vanessa Taylor

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'The Divergent Series: Allegiant': Review

By Fionnuala Halligan, Chief Film Critic 2016-03-07T20:43:00+00:00

Dir: Robert Schwentke. US, 2016, 121 mins.

The practice of splitting franchise finales – which started when Harry Potter carved two films out of The Deathly Hallows and was enthusiastically embraced by Summit/Lionsgate for the Twilight and Hunger Games series – will be put to the test as the Divergent films wind, or grind, down to their final moments, with Allegiant setting the scene for next June’s finale, Ascendant . Long, shiny, and treading a lot of water, Allegiant should preach to hardcore fans of Veronica Roth’s trilogy of YA dystopian novels and those already invested in the first two films, but would seem to lack momentum outside that base.  

This is a YA dystopia which parents can be happy with.

Summit’s futuristic franchise bobbed in at just under the $300m mark with its 2014 and 2015 episodes ( Divergent and Insurgent ) with a domestic drop-off being compensated by increased international takings. Allegiant ’s plot, in which the protagonists climb the wall for a baffling origins story before returning to Chicago for the next film’s showdown, is not always compelling. But director Robert Schwentke, returning from the sequel, burnishes the film with enough gleaming futuristic visuals to sell Allegiant to its target market.

Shailene Woodley and Theo James return to the fray, although both come across as hesitant heroes. Kate Winslet is out, of course, her Janine vanquished in the last film; Naomi Watts as Evelyn becomes an increasingly imperious leader of those left behind in the wake of the insurrection, while Jeff Daniels makes an appearance as ‘David’, a mysterious God-like puppet-master who lives beyond the wall and works for ‘The Bureau’.

For those new to the series, Divergent is a dystopian fantasy spun out around the idea of segregation and subjugation: in the post-apocalyptic city of Chicago, survivors are divided into factions according to their virtues. Those who don’t fit are ‘divergent’, like Tris. Roth’s final novel turned the tables and writers Noah Oppenheim, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage add their own tweaks to turn Allegiant into an anti-eugenics treatise, although the plot doesn’t always flow well.  Meddling with human DNA has led to an apocalyptic war, it seems, and ‘The Bureau’ has fenced the genetically modified population inside the wall in Chicago, where it watches their every activity.

The main emotional thrust of Allegiant seems to be to bring the tentative Tris (Woodley) to a place where she steps up to being a leader. As David frequently tells her, she’s “pure”, unique, special – Tris is the chosen one. “I don’t know who told you being different is bad,” he says.  

In this film, Tris leaps over the wall with her followers – the tattooed Four (Theo James), Christina (Zoe Kravitz), dubious Peter (Miles Teller), her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and Tori (Maggie Q, who isn’t long for this film). Outside, in the fringes, they discover that “somebody seriously messed up the world”. They arrive at a radioactive post-apocalyptic wasteland where even the rain is red. Fortunately, though, a squadron of vessels arrives through a nifty shifting barrier and their leader announces:  “Welcome to the future; we’ve been waiting for you.”

‘The future’ is housed in Chicago’s O’Hare airport and is run by David, who seems to want to map Tris’s DNA, is intent on separating her from her boyfriend Four, and is generally not to be trusted. Tris wanders around some antiseptic rooms wearing halterneck tops while Four goes out on one of David’s raiding missions to steal children from their parents (no particular reason is given). And at home, Evelyn’s forces range against those of the former Amity faction’s Joanna (Octavia Spencer).

All this takes place in an impressively ruined world, although the art department tends to over-egg the aesthetic by dressing combatants in red military fatigues to go with the rain, for example, and the rusty-coloured gas which David is sending to Chicago to give everyone amnesia.

This is a YA dystopia which parents can be happy with. The kids themselves are surprisingly vanilla in this 12-rated film. Tris and Four don’t have sex, or swear, and although she’s independent-minded, Tris is remarkably credulous. One death is briefly touched on, but otherwise, there’s not much to rock the boat. There are no cynical one-liners, no real set-pieces, and Tris is no Ripley.  

This makes the likely audience for Allegiant skew low, and forgiving of the film’s blurry edges. Schwentke’s pronounced aesthetic will give it a wow factor, but if the Divergent series is to remain viable, next year’s finale will need to deliver fireworks to keep the value of the boxed set intact. The problem with the young adult demographic is that it’s such a fleeting moment in time; a 13-year-old in 2014 will be 17 by the time the series pumps out its finale. Can Shailene and her crew keep up?

Production company: Red Wagon Entertainment

International distribution: Lionsgate

Producers: Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shahbazian

Executive producers: Todd Lieberman, David Hoberman, Barry Waldman, Neil Burge

Screenplay: Noah Oppenheim, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, based on the novel Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Cinematography: Florian Ballhaus

Editor: Stuart Levy

Production designer: Alec Hammond

Music: Joseph Trapanese

Main cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Zoe Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Jeff Daniels, Miles Teller, Maggie Q, Ashley Judd.

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'Divergent' review

It's hard to stand out when you're exactly the same.

By Bryan Bishop on March 21, 2014 10:05 am 93 Comments

Young adult novels, and the movies they inspire, have all but taken over the notion of the futuristic sci-fi dystopia. Once the domain of Brazil and Blade Runner , the landscape has instead become home to sagas that use the background of an oppressive future to explore universal themes like the importance of individuality — with a love triangle or two thrown in for good measure. When the pieces come together just right, the result can be The Hunger Games , a series that reaches beyond younger audiences, becoming a cultural phenomenon in the process.

The latest stab at building a new YA film franchise is Divergent , based on Veronica Roth’s best-selling novel. At first glance the film checks all the right boxes, but despite some impressive visual world building and a strong lead performance it’s never able to find the groove it’s so clearly looking for.

In a vaguely defined future Chicago, society has broken itself down into five distinct factions based on personality types. When children turn 16, they take an aptitude test that tells them who they should be, and then in a formal ceremony they stand before an auditorium of friends and family and choose who they want to be. Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) is from Abnegation, a quiet, charity-minded sect, but when she takes her test, the results say she doesn’t fit into any of the ready-made categories. She’s what’s known as "divergent," and as you might expect, anybody that doesn’t slot into place is seen as an existential threat to society itself.

Renaming herself Tris, she sides with Dauntless — the group of warriors that protect Chicago. Through a series of tests and training she learns to embrace the fiercer aspects of her personality, all the while keeping her test results under cover. One of the factions has been quietly laying the groundwork for revolution, however, and Tris soon learns that the only way to save her family and the people of Chicago will be to reveal that she is divergent after all.

As a metaphor it’s about as subtle as an earthquake, but it works largely thanks to Woodley’s performance. The actress has been compared to Jennifer Lawrence for obvious reasons, and she’s able to pull off a similar mix of movie-star charisma and vulnerability — but Woodley’s Tris feels more like a real flesh-and-blood teenager than Katniss Everdeen ever has. Woodley gracefully navigates Tris’ transformation from supplicant to soldier, but problems arise in the plot-heavy second half of the film. While she remains the focal point, Tris is dramatically sidelined as nearly every major plot twist comes courtesy of coincidence or happy accidents. Other characters rush to tell her the latest plot detail; somebody appears from nowhere to save her in an action sequence; Tris discovers she can zip through a hallucinatory mental test just because it’s in her divergent nature. For a story that’s ostensibly about taking ownership of one’s own destiny, it’s just bizarre for a character to not have to try that hard to reach many of her goals.

The rest of the cast are given similarly difficult challenges — even Kate Winslet seems disengaged — though both Zoë Kravitz ( X-Men: First Class ) and Jai Courtney ( A Good Day To Die Hard ) are able to leave an impression as Dauntless team members. As Tris’ handler Four, Theo James serves as a passable foil for Woodley, but the movie’s awkward attempts at romance play more like parody for those that aren’t already invested in the relationship from the novel.

It’s the film’s biggest shortcoming: the inescapable sense that it was designed for lovers of the books rather than fresh audiences. Numerous scenes feel like they could be condensed or cut from the nearly two-and-a-half hour running time. Director Neil Burger ( The Illusionist ) crafts a beautiful world of sweeping futuristic buildings, but there’s no real sense of how this alternate world came to be. Class resentment is a major component of the film’s rising stakes, but as a plot device it seemingly pops up out of nowhere just as it’s needed. Granted, some of those are weaknesses in Roth’s novel, but an adaptation provides an opportunity to improve upon problems, not just repeat them.

With a passionate fan base in place, none of that will likely hurt Divergent at first, and with sequels already slated for 2015 and 2016 it seems we’ll be seeing more of Roth’s world. Of course, that was also the plan with The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones , a YA adaptation that had its sequel delayed after it failed to perform at the box office. Divergent sits in a better position, however, with a compelling hero securely in place and mistakes that can be fixed the next time around — should the filmmakers actually decide to fix them.

Divergent is now playing. Photos courtesy of Summit Entertainment.

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Review: ‘Divergent’ Starring Shailene Woodley, Kate Winslet, Miles Teller & More

Todd gilchrist.

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The cornerstone of young adult fiction is its exploration of personal, emotional issues through the filter of ridiculously high stakes, not the least of which because teenagers equate their feelings with the center of the universe. But when film adaptations of that material build real universes to physically embody those issues, the results are decidedly mixed, exemplified by Neil Burger ’s realization of “ Divergent .”

Using Veronica Roth ’s dystopian future as the foundation for a story of self-actualization, Burger succeeds in aping the cool proficiency of its obvious cinematic predecessor, “ The Hunger Games ,” unfortunately without elevating Roth’s concept to more than an effective if slightly overwrought academic exercise.

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Shailene Woodley (“ The Spectacular Now ”) plays Tris, a young woman raised in a futuristic society where its citizens are divided into five factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Erudite, and Dauntless. Tested for her aptitude in each, her results come back inconclusive—“divergent,” a forbidden designation since it violates the one-quality-per-person system installed by the government. But when she’s allowed to choose which faction she wants to join, she picks Dauntless, and soon finds herself being trained by Four ( Theo James ) to defend society from invisible threats that lurk beyond the city walls.

Struggling to keep pace physically but outclassing her fellow trainees in strategy and planning, Tris is forced to hide her gifts in order not to attract the attention of government leaders, like Jeanine Matthews ( Kate Winslet ), and Erudite, to whom divergents are seen as a threat. But when Erudite stages a coup to overthrow Abnegation’s rule using Dauntless’ ranks as enforcers, Tris finds herself not only in a fight for her life, but all of society as civil war erupts between factions.

At almost 140 minutes, there’s no better way to describe “Divergent” than as a bit of a slog. Where at the very least “The Hunger Games” (and its sequel) shuffled quickly from macro to micro with its world building, Burger’s film takes its time introducing the idea of factions, and devotes enormous attention to Tris’ identity crisis before audiences get any real sense of the larger societal issues that will be explored.

But notwithstanding the ridiculousness of the notion that a society would ever consider this system an effective way of addressing its problems, needless to say there’s something provocative about the concept of a world that seems to have you figured out even before you do. In that regard, this is bullseye teen material, not just in terms of the practical challenges of choosing a college and a major, but the notion that every choice you make is not just defining, but evaluated by others, whether it’s how you dress or behave, what friends you pick, or what your appetites are.

That said, the way the movie defines the factions is thoughtful but indisputably silly. Members of Dauntless, for example, seem to run everywhere they go, and they travel by constantly running trains, which they jump on and off to board and disembark. Needless to say, the factions are all simplistically rendered, because they’re simplistically conceived, and while those primary colors provide the story with clear conflicts, they reduce the complexity of those conflicts, as if it’s remotely possible to simply focus on one personality characteristic, or switch off others, once a largely arbitrary decision has been made which is most important to each individual.

Thankfully, Woodley makes for more than uncertain enough of a hero to add detail and meaning to the implosion of this world. Not unlike “The Hunger Games” actress Jennifer Lawrence , there’s little artifice to her performance, and the mundane honesty of her reactions create a believability that the world would otherwise lack. As Four, meanwhile, James manages the considerable accomplishment of seeming like a real grown-up man rather than a teenage girl’s image of a dreamy boy, and he makes the character’s transformation from hardass to collaborator seem natural, if inevitable. Meanwhile, Winslet conveys one-dimensional menace in a way that is probably more attributable to the script than her skill as an actress.

But ultimately, the elasticity of the story—its sometimes lackadaisical, others aggressive pacing—is what may challenge audiences to embrace this in the way it has “The Hunger Games” even more than the silliness of its universe. Because there’s some genuinely great ideas in the film, and some terrific character work, but it’s given such uneven attention, alternately languished upon and glossed over, that the portrait Burger creates feels complete without, well, making us feel a whole lot else.

Ultimately, Burger’s film is, to its credit, probably second-best among the YA adaptations that Hollywood has mounted since “ Twilight ” put the subgenre on the map. But with a second installment already going into production, one hopes that the series’ world-building is done and its world-living can begin. Because the quality that “Divergent” still lacks is the broader emotional resonance that makes it distinctive—which is why, for the time being, it’s not yet being defined by anything other than what it isn’t. [B-]

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The Correct Order To Watch The Divergent Movies

This post contains spoilers for the "Divergent" trilogy.

The "chosen one" trope is a staple of young adult fare, through some franchises have made an effort to subvert it. For instance, "The Hunger Games" protagonist Katniss Everdeen is meant to embody the Mockingjay throughout "The Hunger Games" series , but she consistently detests being used as a revolutionary symbol for political propaganda. A similarly subversive figure emerges in Veronica Roth's "Divergent" book series, where Beatrice "Tris" Prior is initially presented as an anomaly within the system — with facets of the "chosen one" formula guiding her arc — only to be revealed as just one of many such anomalies. What really makes her stand out is being brave enough to challenge the status quo.

When director Neil Burger's adaptation of Roth's first book, "Divergent," was released in 2014, the film received mixed reviews from critics but did pretty well at the box office. Shailene Woodley's Tris felt fleshed out enough to ground the adaptation, which takes a rather bland approach to the source material. "Divergent" was followed by two sequels, "Insurgent" and "Allegiant," but the decision to split the third novel into two movies ultimately doomed the series and robbed it of a proper ending.

Although the watch order for the "Divergent" trilogy is pretty straightforward, it is worth looking at the missed opportunities that each entry should have capitalized on, and what the fourth canceled "Divergent" film ("Ascendant") might have added to the chronology of this dystopian tale. Without further ado, let us venture into a world ruled by factions, where expressing individuality is the greatest sin, but experiencing a crisis of identity is an even greater crime.

The Divergent story starts with (you guessed it!) Divergent

Start with 2014's "Divergent," which introduces us to post-apocalyptic Chicago. The aftermath of an unexplained war has led to the creation of five factions, which function as social indicators of personal and collective identity. Abnegation is for the selfless, who live monastic lives removed from capitalistic overindulgence, Erudite is for those who value knowledge and pioneer scientific progress, and Candor is for those who value the truth above all else. If someone chooses Amity, they value peace and favor political neutrality, while the Dauntless are described as fearless and are officially in charge of the city's security. Tris is forced to navigate these rather limiting factions as a rogue cog who refuses to fit into the machine, and her Divergent status puts her in immense danger.

There are some intriguing aspects to "Divergent" that could have been explored in the sequels to great effect, such as the direct correlation between state-led surveillance and societal identity. Although Tris is our lens for navigating this world, her field of vision beyond the first "Divergent" film feels extremely limited and is rarely invested with the fleeting depth that the novel series builds its foundation on. The inability to fit into boxed categories results in complete societal exclusion — leading to the factionless being exempted from integration — but the adaptations do not dwell on this aspect well enough, if at all. The "Divergent" films also missed out on the opportunity to improve upon Roth's sketchy worldbuilding in the books.

Insurgent is the second Divergent movie, Allegiant is the third

After watching "Divergent," move on to "Insurgent," which explores the aftermath of the coup and sees Tris in graver danger as the government declares Divergents to be societal threats who need to be eradicated. Tris is not the only Divergent, of course; Tobias/Four (Theo James) is also one, hinting at a deeper conspiracy behind a system so obsessed with erasing individuality but hell-bent on defining the human spectrum with only one overarching quality. Although parts of "Insurgent" sag under the weight of an overstuffed script, it feels more profound than its predecessor, as it does the legwork to competently grapple with some of its core themes. As bare minimum as that sounds, it is undoubtedly better than "Allegiant," the next and final destination of this watch order.

The first issue with "Allegiant" is that it only tells half a story due the book being split into two planned movies. However, the real reason why "Allegiant" officially put an end to the franchise lies in its noticeable drop in quality. The convoluted nature of the story emerges as neither visually arresting nor thematically entertaining enough for audiences to even bother with what happens next. The canceled film, "Ascendant," intended to explore Tris' attempt to expose a horrifying genetic experiment, which eventually leads to her death. This marks a turning point in Tobias' arc, and the advent of a new future thanks to Tris' sacrifice.

Had "Allegiant" incorporated the entirety of the novel's arc in its final installment, the film wouldn't have ended on a cliffhanger, but there is some comfort in knowing that we're probably not missing out on much. After all, there is no dearth of better YA adaptations that explore growing pains and fissures within personal identity. 

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Review: In ‘Divergent,’ Jolted Awake by Fear and Romance

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By Manohla Dargis

• March 20, 2014

Women warriors are on the rise again in American movies, and so, too, are hopes that they’ll be able to strike where it counts: in the industry’s executive suites.

Some of this faith can be traced, irrationally or exuberantly, to “The Hunger Games.”

Its second installment, “Catching Fire,” wasn’t only the highest grossing movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot of guys, and not just, you know, women, that 52 percent of North American moviegoers who are deemed a limited demographic, a niche and a seemingly unsolvable problem. That no one would ever frame male-driven franchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” as niche attractions helps explain that problem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumb movie that I hope makes major bank if only as a reminder of the obvious: Women can drive big and little movies, including the pricey franchises that fire up the box office and the culture.

To do so, though, they’re going to need directors who can handle the demands of an industrial production like this and a script that obscures rather than emphasizes the weakness of the source material. A good action choreographer will be crucial, as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woodley’s eyelashes changes throughout “Divergent” may have been amusingly distracting for a while (maybe they’re mood lashes, a friend quipped), but such shoddiness also underscores the contempt that movie companies have for the medium and the audience.

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• Cast & crew
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The Divergent Series: Insurgent

Beatrice Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart with the help from others on her side. Beatrice Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart with the help from others on her side. Beatrice Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart with the help from others on her side.

• Robert Schwentke
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• 350 User reviews
• 275 Critic reviews
• 42 Metascore
• 4 wins & 18 nominations

Top cast 99+

• Amity Divergent Woman

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• Trivia The character of Caleb has a very unorthodox style of running in the movie, particularly near the start. This was a choice made by actor Ansel Elgort who stated that, " Shailene Woodley and Theo James are superheroes. Caleb is not. Caleb represents the intellectual side, the guy who isn't physical. And I wanted to make sure that was on screen. I wanted to make sure that made sense."
• Goofs The events of Insurgent pick up within days of where Divergent ended; in fact, Jeanine's hand was bandaged throughout Insurgent, yet in just a few short days Eric's hair has grown in and he is able to run full-speed through the woods, even though Tris shot him in the leg during the attack on Abnegation.

Tris : What are you doing here?

Four : You die, I die.

Peter : Oh. Okay, guys, come on. Let's go, seriously. We can do that later.

• Connections Featured in Annoying Orange: Trailer Trashed: Insurgent (2014)
• Soundtracks Holes In the Sky Written by Anthony Gonzalez and Dia Frampton Performed by M83 and Haim M83 appears courtesy of M83 Recording, Inc. HAIM appears courtesy of Columbia Records

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• Reno-Rangan
• Jul 13, 2016
• March 20, 2015 (United States)
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• $110,000,000 (estimated)
• $130,179,072
• $52,263,680
• Mar 22, 2015
• $297,002,527

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• Runtime 1 hour 59 minutes
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Review by Brian Eggert March 23, 2014

Serialized young-adult stories ranging from Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games allow teenage readers to lose themselves in catharsis as their favorite protagonist grows up in a search for identity. Divergent is not what its title suggests; the film adheres to genre formulas down to the last component, providing a familiar scenario for its heroine to break out of her dystopian society’s regimented social boundaries and find her way from adolescence to adulthood. Based on the first volume of Veronica Roth’s best-selling trilogy, the film’s chaste romance and fight-the-power themes conform to teen fiction requirements, but it’s all in the name of bankability. Indeed, Summit Entertainment, the studio responsible for adapting the Twilight and The Hunger Games franchises into hugely successful box-office monsters, has undoubtedly concocted another sensation regardless of its pervading familiarity.

Roth’s books take place in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, a decaying metropolis surrounded by walls to protect its inhabitants from who knows what. When asked what’s beyond the city, one character responds, “Let’s just say we need the walls.” The most unbelievable aspect about Divergent is that no one asks a follow-up question. But why do we need the walls? Is King Kong out there? Is this all an experiment by cracked university professors, like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village ? Don’t bother asking yourself these questions because they won’t be answered, at least not in this film. At any rate, people in this society are divided into one of five factions: Erudite, the resident scholars; the truth-tellers in Candor; the food growers of Amity; Abnegation, the modest and selfless leaders; and Dauntless, the soldiers who cheer and run and climb on stuff wherever they go. Each group wears a color to represent its tenor. Dauntless are garbed in leathery black gear, for example, while the humble members of Abnegation clothe themselves in shades of gray.

A part of Abnegation alongside her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and their parents (Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn), Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) wears a surprising amount of eyeliner and mascara for a faction that has restrictions on mirror time. She’s a contradiction, and even Beatrice’s test results are inconclusive about which group she should be a member of; she’s secretly labeled “Divergent” by the exam’s administrator (Maggie Q), who keeps these forbidden results hush-hush from the Powers That Be—represented by Erudite leader Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet channeling Hilary Clinton, or President Snow). Beatrice doesn’t belong in any group, she’s told. And you can bet that when Choosing Day comes, the moment when every teen gets to select which faction they want to be a part of, Beatrice doesn’t pick Abnegation. In a flourish curiously similar to the “sorting hat” from the Harry Potter franchise, Beatrice chooses Dauntless and, as her society dictates, she’s never allowed to see her family again. “Faction before blood,” everyone chants.

Having renamed herself to the hipper label Tris, our hero must undergo rigorous training in Dauntless under hunky and sympathetic instructor Four (Theo James), but also the pierced and extreme douche-bag Eric (Jai Courtney). She makes a series of fellow-initiate friends (Zoe Kravitz and Ben Lloyd-Hughes), but also some enemies (Miles Teller), none of them as memorable as their character counterparts in Harry Potter (Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and Drako Malfoy). Throughout her testing, Tris must hide her divergence as the Erudite faction has been hunting her nonconforming kind. Over time, Tris grows from an Abnegation weakling into a fighter under Four’s careful instruction, the romance between them blooming under the surface, though Tris has some apparent intimacy issues that go curiously unexplained within the two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor also fail to adequately explore a subplot about Four’s father (Ray Stevenson), the Abnegation leader of this factioned society, beating him as a child.

Underdeveloped subplots aside, director Neil Burger ( The Illusionist , Limitless ) maintains a strong narrative thrust, while Woodley (from The Descendants and This Spectacular Now ) makes the most of her first major starring role in full command of her physical and emotional performance. She doesn’t have the presence or range of Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games  and Catching Fire , but she demands that we root for her. James is likable enough, though he looks as if he should be modeling jeans for Abercrombie & Fitch. Together they’re a fine romantic pairing, and the human drama between them makes Divergent worthwhile. Unfortunately, it’s the absurdity of this dystopian world that strains our suspension of disbelief. Breaking up society into five regimented factions with requisite personality traits, specifically designed for the much-preached-about denial of human nature, is so obviously a bad idea that it’s any wonder how such a silly notion was instituted. Then again, Nazism became a reality too, so perhaps it’s not so unrealistic.

Undone by a soundtrack consisting of corny pop music unbefitting to Roth’s post-apocalypse, Summit’s production captures the scope of the proposed world with average-looking special FX. But the world itself is so drab that few opportunities for impressive visual touches present themselves. At least The Hunger Games counteracted the wasteland of District 12 with the ostentatious colors of The Capitol, but no such visual reprieve exists in Divergent ‘s dull setup. Nevertheless, Burger capably renders clear and watchable action scenes and balances them with the story’s romantic underpinnings, and thankfully the story doesn’t employ the overused young-adult fiction device of the love triangle. But that’s where the film’s few distinctions end; in every other aspect, Divergent imitates its genre’s predecessors as if closely following a step-by-step guidebook for building an adolescent franchise. Although future sequels ( Insurgent in 2015, Allegiant in 2016) are inevitable and assured healthy financial returns, there have been far more compelling metaphors for the trials of adolescence.

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At the risk of alienating young-adult hearts, the faithful but dramatically flat film version of Divergent , from Veronica Roth’s 2011 bestseller, couldn’t stir palpitations in shut-ins. It’s that bland and lifeless. Odd for a story about rebellious youth in a dystopian future Chicago. Roth, just 22 when Divergent was published, rushed out two follow-up novels, Insurgent and Allegiant . A baldfaced attempt to cash in on the success of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy? You be the judge. The plots – two lovers fight to stay alive in a cruel, controlling society – are virtually identical. At least The Hunger Games spawned two terrific movies and a breakthrough star in Jennifer Lawrence. Onscreen, Divergent ignites only indifference.

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I’m surprised. Shailene Woodley, a spirited actress in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now , seems an ideal choice to play Beatrice Prior, the 16-year-old heroine who must choose her place in a stacked-deck society. Theo James, the Brit actor who played the Turk who died scandalously in Lady Mary’s bed on Downton Abbey , is a tall drink of glowering sexuality as Four, her partner in dangerous personality traits. They needed to generate a sizzling chemistry onscreen. It’s not there. Nada.

I had hopes for director Neil Burger; he made magic with The Illusionist . But he can’t perk up a stultifying script by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor that hews to the surface of the book while jettisoning its daring. The teens in Chicago must choose a faction to define them – Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. Beware divergents like Four and Tris (see how she jazzed up her name). But except for Kate Winslet’s fearsome turn as a villain, the only terror Divergent roused in me was that the drag-ass thing would never end. Sorry, I’m a Candor.

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Divergent Reviews

Unfortunately, [director Neil Burger] succeeds despite the screenwriting by Vanessa Taylor and Evan Daugherty, and not because of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

There have been far more compelling metaphors for the trials of adolescence.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 15, 2022

This slick-looking, but shallow slice of sci-fi features a certain amount of Harry Potter-esque HufflePuff...

Full Review | Mar 8, 2022

Divergent is Hunger Games light, but Woodley and James bring some heat to the leads and it's fun watching Kate Winslet sneering her way through a villainous role.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 1, 2021

Falling victim to the same problem of many science-fiction or fantasy epic startups, the story is 90% introduction.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Dec 4, 2020

It doesn't help that the music by Junkie XL is overwrought and dominating in the worst of ways.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 6, 2020

Despite a good lead performance, what we have is a glossy shell but not much underneath.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 21, 2020

It is glaringly obvious that the movie version of Divergent is influenced by the success and popularity of The Hunger Games and sadly this underwhelming film did not deliver.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 16, 2020

Bland, clunky, and lifeless.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jul 8, 2020

I was bored.

Full Review | Apr 27, 2020

It's like Hunger Games, meets Enders' Game, meets every YA book you've ever read.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2020

Divergent suffers in comparison to Hunger Games. But when judged alone, Divergent makes a strong case for the entertainment value of an empowered young female hero attempting to survive and resist in a dystopian society.

Full Review | Mar 11, 2020

A possibly compelling idea gets lost in the mire of trying to be appealing to a core audience that doesn't want to work hard for narrative reward.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2019

The film is more interesting than the average bad movie precisely because it so gratuitously, and even thematically, fails to fit together.

Full Review | Aug 28, 2019

This is a rite-of-passage film, with action, romance and self-realization woven in. But unlike some others of this genre, Divergent is thought-provoking teen sci-fi.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2019

Saved by Woodley and James' performances, Divergent has every trope a teenage fan could ask for, and not much else.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 17, 2019

Divergent is chock-full of holes, but Woodley and her bright band of co-stars try valiantly to save the day.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 3, 2019

The story is told in a much too clinical fashion.

Full Review | Mar 7, 2019

Divergent doesn't have the same mass appeal, but it doesn't make it any less impactful than the best that this genre - the science fiction genre, not the young adult subgenre - has to offer.

Full Review | Feb 5, 2019

While I can't recommend "Divergent" to anyone not already fans of the novels, I will say I'm interested in where this series goes.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2019

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• Blog: Culture , Movies

Movie Monday: ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Claws Back to No. 1

• August 26, 2024
• One Comment

It’s appropriate that both Deadpool and Wolverine are known, in part, for their remarkable healing powers: They might get stabbed or shot or have a few limbs hacked off. And yet, the superheroes just keep coming.

The same might be said for their movie.

After losing the top spot last weekend to Alien: Romulus , Deadpool & Wolverine returned to No. 1. The film speared an estimated $18.3 million in North America with its adamantium claws, pushing its grand domestic total to $577.2 million. Not only is Deadpool & Wolverine the second-biggest movie of the year (still behind Inside Out 2 and its $646.3 million), it’s also the 16 th highest-grossing film of all time.

Last week’s champ didn’t slide far, though. Alien: Romulus finished second with $16.2 million, bringing its own overall gross to $72.6 million.

Another holdover, It Ends with Us , took third place with nearly $11.9 million.

Indeed, we must go all the way to No. 4 before we find our first newcomer. Blink Twice , a blood-soaked revenge thriller from writer/director Zoë Kravitz, earned $7.3 million in its debut weekend.

The Forge , the latest Christian film from the brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick, closed out the top five with a very solid $6.6 million. Moreover, its per-screen average of $3,630 was higher than either Blink Twice or It Ends with Us .

We should note the performance of two other newbies. The Crow , a retelling of a film originally released in 1994 , ironically had very little to crow about. Indeed, it got caw-lobbered at the box office, earning just $4.6 million to finish eighth. 

Meanwhile, the indie film Between the Temples earned about $678,000 to finish 12 th .

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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For me the Kendrick Brothers are hit or miss with some films like Fireproof, Courageous, and Lifemark being absolutely fantastic. But then they’ve also made boring dullfests like Facing the Giants, War Room and Overcomer. Since The Forge is a sequel to the unrelentingly dull War Room to say I have no interest would be an understatement. May I suggest they bring back Kirk Cameron for their next movie since he seems to bring out the best of them.

Anyway, happy to see Inside Out 2 is still the highest grossing movie this year. It may not be my favorite animated film this year, that honor goes to Despicable Me 4, or even my favorite film of the year (Godzilla x Kong the new Empire, Kingdom of the planet of the apes, One Life, and Ordinary Angels are all fighting over the top spot), but it is a darn good Pixar film and well deserving of all the acclaim it’s getting. Too bad Elemental wasn’t as popular last year.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

• March 21, 2014
• Shailene Woodley as Beatrice Prior/Tris; Theo James as Four; Ashley Judd as Natalie; Kate Winslet as Jeanine; Jai Courtney as Eric; Miles Teller as Peter

Home Release Date

• August 5, 2014
• Neil Burger

Distributor

• Summit Entertainment

Movie Review

Beatrice Prior has a choice to make. And, frankly, it’s not a choice that the 16-year-old wants to make. She’d rather just keep living with her parents and not worry about where she “fits” in society.

But that’s not how things work these days.

It’s been 100 years since the war that wiped out most of humanity. The last remnants of civilization now live behind a giant wall in what was once Chicago. And in these trying times, survival of the human race demands structuring things a bit differently. To best help society, everyone is told, a person’s role must be made clear early on and remain consistent.

And so Beatrice must choose one of the five so-called factions in which she’ll spend the rest of her life. She can remain in the Abnegation faction with her parents, a group that sacrificially serves the world around them. Or she can opt for the Amity faction of kindhearted farmers, the honest Candor faction of judges, the Erudite thinkers and scientists or the Dauntless faction that bravely protects all the rest.

It’s obviously a huge decision.

Fortunately there’s a test that helps figure out each individual’s genetic and psychological strengths. You simply drink a serum, lay back, have a hallucination or two and let a special machine read you like a book. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway.

In Beatrice’s case, it doesn’t. When she comes to, the attendant looks at her nervously and suggests she slip out the back door right away. “And don’t tell anybody about this,” the woman warns her. Beatrice’s test, you see, suggests she’s equally adept at three different skill sets, that she could happily find a home in any of the three related factions.

Now, you might think that would give her an advantage. But in this society, that makes Beatrice something odd. Something dangerous. Something destabilizing to the well-defined social order. Something … divergent.

In short, Beatrice is the kind of person the factions can’t easily control. She doesn’t feel dangerous. But she is . She’s an anomaly that can threaten the whole system. And so she has to make sure she keeps her added abilities under wraps and not draw any attention to herself.

Because the so-called Divergents actually don’t get a choice.

They get to be … eliminated.

Positive Elements

But Beatrice does choose. She keeps quiet about her differences, picks the Dauntless faction of fighters and renames herself Tris. And though she struggles to keep pace physically with other trainees, Tris makes up for it by outclassing them when it comes to strategy and planning.

All of that puts her in a position to make a difference when one of the factions stages something of a civil war. Tris isn’t as mentally pliable as other Dauntless members, and she makes brave, self-sacrificial choices to protect literally thousands of innocents―circumventing a genocidal massacre.

A fellow Dauntless member named Four also puts his life on the line, stepping out of the ranks of soldiers to fight against impossible odds to support Tris’ heroic efforts. He also makes one of the movie’s most important speeches, declaring he would like to not just be brave, but also selfless, honest, kind and intelligent. It’s a mindset all of us can and should admire, not allowing ourselves to settle for just one quality characteristic, but aspiring to master them all.

Elsewhere, Tris’ family members repeatedly voice their love and support for one another. And when things get dangerous, both of Tris’ parents offer their lives to protect her and to save the lives of others. It’s said of their sacrifice, “They loved you. For them there was no better way to show you.”

Spiritual Elements

Divergent is set in a completely secular world, and there’s no real spiritual content to speak of. That said, the ceremony at which young people choose their faction has the feel of a religious rite. When each person’s name is called, he or she walks to a raised platform where five bowls represent the five factions. The choosing of a faction is done by taking a ceremional knife, cutting one’s hand and dripping blood into a bowl. The ceremony is meant to reinforce the idea that a person’s primary allegiance is now to a faction and no longer to a family. Accordingly, we repeatedly hear the phrase “Faction before blood.”

Sexual & romantic Content

New Dauntless pledges, both male and female, must all sleep in the same common area and use the same open shower area. We never see them do so, but we do see Tris, who’s clearly uncomfortable with the coed living arrangments, trying to change clothes while keeping as covered as possible. We very briefly glimpse her in a bra as she changes shirts, and others in the background are seen changing as well. When she slips off her jacket in another scene, a Dauntless teammate crudely yells at her, “Take it off!” She also wears a formfitting, cleavage-baring tank top at times (as do other Dauntless females).

Tris and Four (who’s her group leader), fall for each other. They hug and passionately kiss before she tells him, “I don’t want to go too fast.” At that point he backs off. Later, while under the influence of a hallucinatory drug, Tris envisions Four forcefully throwing her on the bed and moving toward her, then getting on top of her in a sexually threatening manner. (She knocks him away and escapes.)

Violent Content

Tris is a plebe in the soldiers’ ranks. As such, we see her and others go through painful training meant to shape them into unstoppable fighters. For instance, they bloody and bruise one another with vicious one-on-one beat-downs (including several guy-on-girl pummelings). Three hooded trainees threaten to throw Tris off a high cliff (before Four steps up to slam the offenders’ faces into a rock wall). A young woman is purposely left to dangle by her fingertips over a deadly precipice (to supposedly prove a point about never giving up). Another has her ear sliced by a thrown blade. In some cases, cadets are shot at close range with neuro-darts that simulate the writhing pain of being shot with a bullet. They jump on and off fast-moving trains. Initiation rituals include jumping several stories into a dark pit and rocketing down a precarious zip line between Chicago skyscrapers. 

Part of the Dauntless training also includes a drug-induced psychological test. In these ominous hallucinatory visions, trainees are threatened with raging fire, smothering quicksand, attacking canines and birds, forceful drownings, slowly closing and crushing walls, and men with belts and bludgeons. We also repeatedly see needles being injected into people’s necks in order to administer the drug. In two cases, test subjects are forced to shoot innocents (even loved ones) in execution-style killings. (The fatal shots are delivered offscreen.)

Once the civil war breaks out, things get deadly in real life, too, with scores of soldiers and civilians alike getting shot and killed. Tris ends up having to kill one of her own friends by shooting him. She shoots and injures a teen guard to make him reveal a key logistic. Throngs of men, women and children are forced to their knees with guns to their heads. A woman has her hand impaled by a thrown knife. In a relatively bloody fight with drug-addled Four, Tris puts a gun to her own forehead as a means of shocking him out of his hallucination. A young man’s body is pulled up out of a watery pit after he commits suicide. (His face is distorted and bloody.) A woman sticks her finger into Tris’ bloody shoulder wound. We see other wounded and bleeding victims die.

Crude or Profane Language

One whispered f-word. A half-dozen misuses of God’s name accompany two or three each of “a‑‑hole” and “b‑‑ch.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Many people receive injections of the dream-inducing drug that can also completely control them, removing their capacity to question or to disobey murderous orders. During a group celebration scene, several people raise the simple tin cups they drink from as if toasting someone.

Other noteworthy Elements

A particularly sadistic Dauntless leader named Eric takes pleasure in treating several new recruits (especially Tris) cruelly throughout the movie. (But not nearly so severely as in the book.) Not surprisingly, Eric is exactly the kind of soldier who’s easily manipulated by the film’s real power-hungry villain, a faction leader named Jeanine. Members of the self-sacrificing Abnegation faction are often mocked by the other groups because of their simple, pleasure- and vanity-eschewing ways, so much so that other factions use the slur “stiffs” to demean members of the group. One of Tris’ Dauntless teammates attacks her, then begs, “Can you ever forgive me?” Tris angrily replies, “If you even come close to me, I will kill you.” He then commits suicide (offscreen) by leaping off a tall wall.

Like the atomic bomb-laden sci-fi flicks of the past, today’s young adult, book-based movies offer themselves up as something more than just simple entertainment. In addition to a suspenseful, plot-driven story, they also offer broad allegories, fantasy filters through which viewers can ruminate on real-world issues.

In the case of Divergent (based on the novel of the same name by 25-year-old author Veronica Roth), it’s a teen in a dystopian future wrestling with her fate: being an outcast who can’t seem to figure out how to fit in. She frets over the fact that everyone wants to label her before she’s had the chance to figure herself out. And she grapples with high-stakes decisions in a high-conoformity world where you’re judged by every action.

Thus, I suspect most teens who see Divergent will readily nod and say, “Yep, I feel ya’.” Like Slate film reviewer Dana Stevens says, “It’s not a mystery why so many young-adult best-sellers (and the lucrative movie franchises based on them) would take place in post-apocalyptic societies governed by remote authoritarian entities and rigidly divided into warring factions. The word dystopia comes from a Greek root that roughly translates as ‘bad place,’ and what place could be worse than high school? Adolescence is not for the faint of heart. The to-do list for the decade between ages 10 and 20 includes separating from your parents, finding your place among your peers at school, beginning to make decisions about your own future, and—oh yes—figuring out how to relate to the world, and yourself, as a suddenly and mystifyingly sexual being.”

Admittedly, Divergent ‘s futuristic dystopian premise feels stretched to the point of being ridiculous. I mean, who’s really going to swallow the idea of a society where everybody has to fit into only one of five primary-color categories? Still, if a movie showcases the right stars, delivers the right CGI action and adds in the right kind of romance … well, as the old movie line goes, “If you build it, they will come.” And from that perspective, Divergent delivers exactly what teens seem to be coming for.

Is it a truly immersive moviegoing experience, a film that will inspire viewers to greatness? No, not quite. In fact, the misogynistic pummeling of its female lead can feel more than a little disquieting at times. Like the  Hunger Games movies before it, one can’t help but wonder if the teens-beating-teens cinematic tack shouldn’t have been avoided altogether. (A few other moments in the film, including some wince-inducing images of wounds and mass atrocities, as well as a glimpse of the film’s young star changing clothes, also need to be called out here in terms of content worth considering before heading off to join up with your own faction.)

Then again, this is an allegory, a fantasy that throws a young woman into the roiling waves of figuring out who she is, how she fits, and what’s right and wrong. It ultimately shows her meeting those challenges with a heart of self-sacrifice and heroism and an impassioned concern for those she loves. And it advocates for us all to be more than one-dimensional beings, to strive for well-roundedness as we practice a wide array of positive characteristics.

As allegories go, that might not be very, um, divergent from the norm, but neither is it all bad.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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