Overall, I would have to say this film wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t the best, but it could have been worse. This was more like a cliff notes version of the book for anyone who read the book, which is a good thing and a bad thing. Some of the stuff they cut out was do-able, but the main things that they cut out, really hurt what they were trying to get across. For example, in the book, Tris had a close friendship with Al and even some moments where it looked like Al was crushing on her. In the film, they barely showed his character, so we really didn’t see that close of a connection. Which really hurts the film because right up to when Al kills himself, we don’t feel as bad as we should because this character wasn’t as fully developed in the film as it was in the book. The same thing could be said when Tris’ mother ends up sacrificing herself to save her daughter. Not that it wasn’t done well, it’s just there was a moment where it was almost starting to look a bit over dramatic, mainly when Tris was reacting to her mother’s death. In the book, it was taken more seriously, and Tris’ reaction was natural but in a subtle way. Tris’ reaction in the film was natural too… At least for the first part. But it seemed they played it a bit too dramatically, so it loses it edge on trying to be serious and looks a bit silly.
However, I will admit that it did do a good job showing how insane and crazy the dauntless were. It even showed a lot of the intense scenes pretty well. But as far as the book vs the movie, the book was a lot better than the movie. Even though, the film did follow the book pretty closely, there still were a few scenes that they just added on their own. Which I really wish they didn’t because the book was already like a movie script, in that it showed a lot of visuals that you could easily picture in your mind.
Nicole Rousseau 