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Reviews
Divergent (2014)
i recommend you to watch the journey of a young girl leaving her family and her society
If you have read the series, you might understand the stories underlying this community mess, dividing it into five factions based on one different virtue. Of course a group of people living with only one virtue would cause chaos inside the one faction itself and affecting the society. But here, the other problem is, when your mind can't be fitted into any group, you'll be called divergent, and they'll hunt you down. That was what happened on Tris (Woodley).
About the plot itself was lack of surprise for me. All the flaws of the plot originally came from the book. All about this messy complicated world, was introduced at the first part of the movie. I think it was the hardest part for Burger to explain the audience about the world of Divergent. You'll find it confusing and somehow boring. I love how Burger dealt with this. The way he built up the character of Tris turned this movie into a beautiful journey if a young woman leaving her family and society. She must learn new way of life that opposite with her old ones. Abnegation was stiff and odd. And she had to choose which one of factions she wanna live in and how she managed herself to fit into the new one, how she managed herself to face the family she left. I think it's the beautiful from Divergent for me, Woodley could deliver the emotion. The flaws of the setting and plot can be covered by the way they building the character.
I think it's a good book adaptation movies. Some of adaptations ruined the original book. But Burger picked a good point of the book to develop it into a movie. Which he chose to build the journey of Tris.
Fans are worried about the age of Theo James, they are expecting 18 years old actor to get the role of Four. But i think James's maturity here helped much in developing the characteristic of Four. He could bring Four's trait exactly fit. Four looks mature and capable of handling things.
The romance wasn't too cheesy, not like the other teenage romance.
What Burger did, make this teen stories acceptable for adult audience. Even though, the plot and setting is kind of mess. But Burger and the team, so the actors, did, yeah, okay, in developing Divergent movie. For me it is a good book adaptation movie. I was surprise by the lead actress performance.
I recommend you to watch, until the studio gets enough profit and pick the sequels. Because this one isn't kind of standalone movie. The mystery of the factions hasn't solved in the end of the movie, and i love to watch the other journey of Tris and Four, and how that world recover.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
delivers its promises on supernatural adventures and bad-ass action sequences
I read the book, the first one. The story is standard YA type. Took several aspect of former YA fictions, such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Twilight. But the movie crews really did try to make the movie interesting to watch. Why I said so? (Here's some examples)
1. Similar as Percy Jackson, Half blood, but in here half angel, half human, called shadow-hunters/ demon hunters (Jace said) and protecting the world by hunting and killing demons with several type of glass sword, fire-blower, unique gun to kill vampire, (I like this idea, it's more modern than twilight.)
2. Why Harry Potter? The Institute looks like Hogswarts. With Hodge (maybe the principal of the institute) having birds like Dumbledore. And the runes (it's like spells with strange symbols applied on skin to give additional powers) and to create it, they need the 'stele' (like wand). The way Clary (Lily Collins) clean her house with the rune applied on her skin was just like the way Dumbledore cleaning Slughorn's house in HP6. I don't know why there are too many of it reminds me to Harry Potter when I didn't even try to compare.
3.Twilight, mostly because of the love triangle. In love with powerful, different-kind of human who she barely knew and challenged by her best friend's love and the fight between vampire- werewolf.
This kind of storyline, we can't put the blame on the movie crews. They were just adapting a book. Harald Zwart did try to give us the excitement by putting a lot of action sequences. Jamie Campbell Bower (Jace Wayland) and Jemima West (Isabelle) did wonderful job on this. They stole my attention. Bad ass.
Kevin Zegers (Alec) and Godfrey Gao (Magnus) are less than expected. Their acting isn't good. Jonathan Rhys Meyer (Valentine) seems to kind to be a villain. Hodge is more look like a villain than Valentine, and I thought it supposed to be otherwise.
The script is uneven. I could get it. The complexities of 500 pages book is hard to compress in 2 hours movies with almost an hour of action sequences. It's too many informations to take for the first hour. If I haven't read the book, it would be pretty hard to understand the shadow hunter world.
My opinion about the movies: 1.The story is not so good, very predictable, and cheesy twist. (but blame the book's author for that if you don't like/enjoy it)
2.The script, I found Jessica Postigo pretty good to add some info not related to the book but it's enough to support the change they did for the movie storyline.
3.The cast, I don't agree on Valentine, like I've said before. And his hair. (SPOILER) Valentine must be blond. it's weird the ending with none of both parents are blond (Valentine hair is black in the movie), related to the fact who his son is, you'll find out why by watching the movie. Clary and Jace seemed believe it. Stupid.
4.The acting is fair. Kevin Zegers should look tougher and killer, that's the way Alec does.
5. The fighting choreography is good.
6. The animation, creatures, effects are impressive. Well done.
7. The soundtrack's little bit annoying because I don't think it fits the theme of the scene. The score of the fight in Dumort Hotel sounds like a night club, maybe if they added thrilling music for this scene, the audience would feel the thrill. First, not fit, and too loud. It's not a back-sound, more like Demi Lovato's clip video.
8. It has all supernatural aspects, werewolves, vampires, demons, warlocks and witches.
Okay, summaries:
This movies isn't the next twilight. The adventure suits for Harry Potter fans.
The action is dominating the movies, so guys and adults can go enjoy this movie. I don't think this movie would attract wider audience, because of 'the next Twilight' paradigm, but I'm telling you, this movie brought more value than that. They're fighting against demons and evil to protect the world, not just a girl's obsession to live forever with her vampire lover.
It's not a very good movie. but I recommend you to put on your watch-list, it's pretty entertaining.