DATE REVIEWED: 9/5/24
TITLE: Divergent
BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2014 Summit Entertainment / Lionsgate / Red Wagon Entertainment
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie takes place in Chicago. A border fence separated the city from the outside world after a war that occurred 100 years before. The citizens were divided into five groups called factions in order to keep the peace. The smart people in blue (water-eye) led by a mean evil-hearted female Jeanine Matthews were Erudite.The kind farmers in orange (earth-tree) were Amity. The honest council people in white were (glass-scales) Candor. The city’s police protectors in black (coal-fire) were Dauntless. The selfless people who cared for the homeless Factionless and also ran the government wore gray (stones-holding hands) and were Abnegation, led by heavy hitter male Marcus Eaton. Andrew Prior worked for Marcus. Andrew’s 16-year-old daughter Beatricewould soon take her aptitude test to find out which faction she belonged to. She wanted to have the freedom of the Dauntless and not be stuck as a public servant in Abnegation who helped people. The mandatory teen test that the teens took would tell them which faction was their best match, but regardless of the test results, the teens would choose for themselves what gang to belong to, but once chosen, the had to be part of that group for life and could never change again. Beatrice’s test administrator was Tori Wu, who gave her a serum so she would hallucinate. While under the drug, the teen was confronted with snarling dogs and refused to take a knife or piece of meat, and instead she tackled the dogs. Beatrice’s test results were inconclusive per Tori and Tori proved that Beatrice belonged to three factions…Abnegation, Erudite and Dauntless. She was a rare Divergent, so Tori Wu instructed Beatrice to hide the true results of her test from everyone and live with her family as Abnegation because Wu said she would lie on the results and only show that Beatrice was Abnegation. Divergents were being hunted down and killed everywhere to keep the peace. Erudite started attacking Abnegation and watched people in hopes to steal the governing power away from Abnegation. Beatrice and her brother Caleb (also being tested around the same age) refused to exchange test results, but he advised his sister that they both think of their families and themselves when they made their choice, because if a teen chose outside their parents group then the teen could never have contact with their parents again. Jeanine Matthews, the leader of Erudite, lectured Beatrice to choose for herself at the ceremony the next day. The teens (16-yr-old) would become members of adult society after they made their choices, and no matter what they chose the motto was “Faction before (HIS) blood,” and their faction was above their family ties (to keep peace in the city). As part of the city counsel’s choosing ceremony the teens used knives to prick their hands and then drip their blood into the bowl of the faction of their choice. Caleb chose Erudite, and Beatrice chose Dauntless. All the members and new cadets of Dauntless after the ceremony ended then ran to jump on a moving train and then jumped off the fast moving train onto a rooftop. Anyone Dauntless who didn’t do what they were told would become factionless/homeless since none were allowed to return to their former homes and parents or join another gang. Eric Coulter, the leader of Dauntless, then made everyone jump off the high-rise city building roof into a black hole without knowing that there was anything below. Beatrice volunteered to go first and she (and others that followed) landed in a net far below that turned out to be the location of the Dauntless lair. Beatrice permanently changed her name to Tris on the spot since she had the opportunity and could never change it again, per the law of the land. Some of the Dauntless trainees went with Lauren while the others stayed with their instructor Tobias “Four” Eaton…Marcus Eaton’s son. The newbies were assigned their living quarters and told that the boys and girls would sleep and change clothes in the same open bedroom (cots) and both sexes would also share an open bathroom/shower area. The teens were instructed to change in front of each other and burn their old clothes and wear only the assigned black colored Dauntless gang clothing. The trainees would undergo a 10-week training program in two phases, physical and mental. The lowest-ranking trainees would be cut at the end of the program and end up factionless with no home and no family. They trained in the Pit in the early mornings, and Peter Hayes taunted Tris that she would end up with the factionless because she was falling behind and couldn’t shoot a gun right. Tris was the first jumper so she was put into the ring to fight with a female who was the last jumper. The two teen girls fought hard punching and kicking until Tris couldn’t fight anymore and was beat. Tris was one of the lowest-ranking ones on the list, but Tris wouldn’t choose to go back to her parents even if they could take her back, which they couldn’t. Tris and her teen friends, Christina, Will and Albert cheered themselves up by getting tattoos. Tori Wu was not only the drug administrator but also the tattoo artist so Tori tattooed three black birds on Tris’s shoulder. Tori believed that Tris didn’t fit in to society and would be found out as a Divergent. Tris worked harder and did trained overtime fighting and shooting guns to catch up and get out of the red on the list. Christina fought the last jumper and gave up, so Eric Coulter taught quitter Christina a lesson by pushing her off a high walkway above the city and leaving her hanging onto the railing for her life. Adult Eric gave teen Christina ultimatums to hang on until he called time, drop to her death or give up and be homeless. Christiana chose to hang on until Eric called for time and was then pulled up to safety. Tris soon discovered that she was good at knife throwing. Will mouthed off to Eric, so he taught Will a lesson by forcing him to stand in front of the knife target while adult Four threw knives at him. Will would be kicked out and homeless if he flinched, but Tris stood up for her Will and ended up taking Will’s place while Four threw knives near Tris’s head. Eric wanted Four to teach Tris and the other teens a lesson and had Four draw blood and Four did when he threw a knife and nicked the top of her right ear and the teen bled. Four told Tris that he barely cut her on purpose because Eric wouldn’t let him off if he didn’t aim close and he could have hurt her worse but he didn’t. Later on, Peter read the news from a device he had, and the media questioned why Tris and Caleb left Abnegation and suggested that it was because their parents beat them like Marcus beat his son Four. Female in charge Eurdites Jeanine visited Dauntless and revealed that she had all access to private records and had seen Tris’s test resultsand she believed that Tris made the right choice to go against her parents. Will believed that Jeanine and the Erudites were there to hunt rogue Divergents. Eric got revenge on Tris by matching Tris and Peter to fight each other in the Pit ring. Four coached female Tris about how to take Peter down that included punching the bigger male in the throat. The fight was brutal and Peter easily overpowered Tris and gave her a bloody nose. Four didn’t stick around to watch so he walked off just as Peter kicked Tris while she was down in the back of the head and knocked Tris unconscious. Tris woke up a day later. Will and Christina informed her at her bedside that Eric kicked her out of Dauntless and wouldn’t let her participate in the war games that Christina and Will were headed to. Tris didn’t want to go home even though her dad, Andrew, was on the council and might be able to pull some strings. After Will and Christina left to catch the train, Tris followed after Dauntless anyway and caught up to the train so Four helped her onboard and Eric said it was fine that she made that decision. The trainees were separated into two teams and played a game similar to Capture the Flag. They used guns containing neuro-stim darts that simulated the pain of being shot but only lasted a few minutes. Tris had an idea and she then started climbing to the top of the broke down Ferris wheel and Four followed after her, and caught her when Tris almost fell off. Four had a fear of heights but he liked Tris romantically and didn’t want anything to happen to her. From that high vantage point, the two were able to spot the opponent’s flag. Soon after that, Tris and Christina off together by themselves shot Peter multiple times and then the two females were able to capture the flag while the rest of the team covered them. Everyone returned to headquarters by ziplining high above ground from the rooftops of skyscrapers. Tris almost couldn’t reach the brake to stop herself from colliding with a wall, but at the last minute she luckily pulled the brake. Once there, teacher Four personally congratulated Tris on her bravery. Tris and her friends moved onto the second stage of training while the lowest-ranking left to live with the homeless factionless. Dauntless helped load supplies in the city so spying mom used a flashlight to get her daughter’s attention.Tris left her gang to investigate the strange signal light that came from inside a building. Tris told Natalie that they were not supposed to be together. Natalie confessed that she too was a Divergent. Natalie warned the young female Tris that she was in danger and not to tell anyone who she was. Natalie instructed Tris how to get through Dauntless in the second phase, the mental one, where they would get into Tris’s head and use her fears against her. Natalie quickly hid out of sight when a Dauntless instructor came looking for Tris. Back at the Dauntless building, the remaining teen trainees were injected with a serum that produced hallucinations and forced them to confront their worst fears in their minds. Four, in a private room, conducted this part of the training one on one with the rookies. He told Tris he would be able to see her fears and advised her to be calm and face them. While under the drug, Tris encountered quicksand, burning fire, and a flock of crows. Tris reminded herself it wasn’t real. The birds attacked Tris viciously so she escaped by jumping into the water. Four was surprised that Tris finished her hallucination four times faster than anyone else and suspected something was not right with the records in the system concerning Tris. Tris continued practicing extra so she could get out of the red and not be cut. Peter made Tris’s friends wary of her by declaring that one of them would have to take her old place at the bottom now that she was rising in the ranks. Tris then refused to share with her friends how she got through her hallucinations so fast, so they believed she was keeping things from them. In Tris’s next drugged hallucination mental test, she was locked into a glass tank that filled up with water. Tris again reminded herself it wasn’t real. She was able to find a crack in the glass and used that to break the glass cage tank and free herself. Once Tris awoke, Four asked Tris what her real test results were because he knew how she handled herself in fearful situations that Tris was very different from the majority. Tris again said she was Abnegation, but Four knew that she was lying because normal Dauntless people wouldn’t know to break the glass to escape death the way she did. Tris had more questions so she went to speak to Tori Wu for advice. Tori told Tris that her brother was going well in the second phase like Tris until the Dauntless leaders discovered he was Divergent and they killed him and left his dead body in the chasm. Tori warned Tris to again hide her identity and added that Tris might be dead already if they knew. Tris was determined to find a way out to help others and save herself so she went to the Erudite faction to see Caleb. However, brother Caleb had been brainwashed into agreeing that Erudite should be in charge and he predicted that they, with female Matthews behind the bloody scenes, would take over the government soon by stealing it. Caleb put faction over (GOD’s) blood and didn’t care that Tris could die, so he told her to leave since she could never go back to Abnegation. Jeanine’s thugs inside the building then tried to grab Tris, but pretend nice Jeanine called off her mercenaries and instead sat down with Tris and slyly questioned her. Jeanine explained her quest to keep the peace by cutting all family ties because of the lies, stealing and havoc that came with keeping them. Jeanine wanted to be able to rely on Tris to be able to police the system to keep the peace (to Matthews command) and not harbor hostility against the system. Ms. Matthews then arranged for Tris to be driven back to Dauntless in a car. As Tris walked back into the dark lit Dauntless building, black-clad and black masked thugs, one of them Tris’s friend (Al) Albert, tried to throw her into the chasm but teacher Four came to her rescue and fought them all off. Four took Tris to his large secluded chambers to stay the night. Four tended her wounds and explained that her fear made her alert so she could overcome it whereas fear drove the others to hate themselves and hate everyone else, especially those around them. Tris confided in Four what she learned from her brother that Erudite would try to overthrow Abnegation and she was worried about her parents, but Four advised her to be more worried about herself. The next day, Al tried to talk to Tris at lunch, but she yelled at him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t stay away from her because of what Al did to her the night before and almost succeeded in killing her. Al was upset and left and shortly after Al jumped into the chasm and had killed himself. Tris confided in Four that she wouldn’t pass the last test because everyone would find out that she was Divergent and kill her. Four refused to let that happen, so he and tris both shot up with drugs and faced their fears together in joint private hallucination behind closed doors. While in their fear state, Four taught Tris how to do everything the Dauntless way so she could hide that she was Divergent. Four explained to Tris that he went by Four name because he had four fears, so together he and Tris confronted them starting with fear of heights and confinement. Four was ordered by Dauntless to shoot an innocent girl in the head that resembled Tris, so he looked away as he shot her and Tris watched. Four’s last fear was being beat with an object by his dad, Marcus, and Four with the help of Tris fought Marcus off. After the two woke up and the drug wore off, Four took off his shirt and showed Tris the tattoo covering his back per her request. It featured the symbols of the five factions because he wanted to be all of them and not limited to just one. Four then passionately kissed Tris. From their room, the two lovers spotted the Erudites who showed up every morning at the police headquarters to load up on supplies of computers and questionable drugs that could be used to create any army because whoever was injected with the drug would be forced to do whatever they were told without protest. Tris went to her final test and faced her fears from the drugged hallucinations and was told that everyone in attendance watching the computer screens would be able to see inside her mind.She fought off the crows and found herself tied to a burning stake, and she freed herself by burning through the ropes and putting her hands in water to cool the burns. She blocked the flow of water from drowning her in the tank with her shirt, not by breaking the glass. Unexpectedly, Tris then fought Four off when he tried to rape her. The last part was when Nazi Jeanine gave Tris a gun and instructed the teen to shoot dead her brother and parents if she wanted to be Dauntless, so Tris shot her brother first and then the test was over and she woke up. Tris and the others trainees passed and were now members of Dauntless, and the teens all were immediately implanted (drug shot to the neck) with what the leaders called “tracking devices”. Oddly, Four was missing and Tris didn’t want a device, but Eric shot up Tris anyway with the drug. Tris realized that it wasn’t a tracking device at all but in fact a shot of the mind-control drug so the Dauntless (black) police could be the drugged mercenary army for the evil no-queen Janine so Erudite (blue) could take over the government. However, the drug had no affect on Divergents, so Tris played along with the gang of zombie Dauntless in order to stay alive. The leaders soon identified one Divergent because he questioned what was going on and didn’t act like the other silenced and conformed ones, so they shot that one dead since he was a threat to their evil takeover. The Dauntless were loaded onto a train and taken to the Abnegation faction. Four was among them and he too pretended to go along with it but then revealed to Tris that he was also a Divergent by holding her hand as she stood next to him. The Dauntless searched the Abnegation houses and shot those people as part of the overall plan. Tris and Four went to find Tris’s parents but they were gone from their house. Eric recognized Tris and Four were Divergents. Tris and Four were captured and brought before Jeanine, who decided that Tris would die and Four would be kept alive. Four tried to attack Jeanine, but he was overpowered and separated from Tris who was taken away behind a building to be shot and killed. Mom hiding close by wouldn’t stand for it and shot the bad cops before they could shoot her daughter. Natalie then admitted that she used to be Dauntless herself. Natalie and Tris then headed to Monroe and State to find Andrew. Along the way, Tris had to shoot Will dead and then dropped her gun because she didn’t like killing her drugged up friend. Natalie tried to help Tris get it together and out of danger and took bullets for her daughter and then was shot dead. Tris found Andrew, Marcus and other Abnegation hiding out in a building. They all mourned Natalie, and her brother Caleb said he left Erudite and rejoined Abnegation when he realized that Tris was right about the wickedness of the female in charge. Tris led her small group to board a train and jump off onto a rooftop, and then they jumped into the net to get into Dauntless the secret way she knew from her first day on the force. Peter wasn’t under the influence of the drugs, so Tris shot him and forced him to take them to the control room. Andrew (dad) was then shot and killed after he used his gun to clear a path into the room for his children and others. Four was now under mind-control and drugged, so Tris tried to rescue him but he turned on her and attacked the teen violently. After she told Tris she loved him, she was able to snap him out of it and together they fought off the Erudite goons. Dragon lady Matthews explained that Divergents were too strong-willed and independent and therefore were a threat to the system. She used the controls to force the Dauntless to kill off their Abnegation hostages, so Tris threw a knife into Jeanine’s hand and then injected her with the drug. Tris used the mind-control on Jeanine, and she shut the program down to snap all the Dauntless out of their trances and wipe out and erase the mind-control program altogether. Tris knocked Jeanine out. Tris, Four, Four’s dad, Caleb, and the others were now homeless. Eric tried to hunt them down, but they escaped onto a train and planned to ride it to the end of the line and jump having no idea where they would go or who they would fight tomorrow. This movie had a budget of $85 million and grossed over $288 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly “Exciting.” Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times “Spectacular.”