Despite its hype as the next big female-driven franchise after “The Hunger Games’’ — with an opening of as much as $70 million forecasted — “Divergent’’ is a clumsy, humorless and shamelessly derivative sci-fi thriller set in a generically dystopian future.
Shailene Woodley stars as Tris (short for Beatrice), a young woman chosen by fate to challenge the rigid caste system. She’s diagnosed as “divergent’’ in a mandatory test administered before her Harry Potter-esque “choosing’’ ceremony. That means she doesn’t neatly fit into any of the five factions that coexist in what’s left of humanity 100 years after an apocalyptic war, all living walled off in Chicago (Why? It’s not explained despite reams of exposition.)
Beatrice’s tester (Maggie Q) warns her not to disclose the test results, because her unusual status poses a threat to the status quo — divided between the supposedly selfless ruling faction, Abnegation, which includes her parents (Ashley Judd, Tony Goldwyn); the brainy Erudite, who are challenging Abnegation for control; the truth-telling Candor; Amity, cheerful farmers who don’t figure in the plot; and the law-enforcement faction, Dauntless.
Much to her parents’ disappointment, she casts her lot with the swaggering enforcer faction — perhaps because they have the most flattering costumes. Which faction designs them is one of many unclear points — such as why a civilization that’s advanced enough to have developed mind-control techniques wouldn’t bother fixing up long-ruined buildings or resuming airplane service.
The film’s best sequence comes when Tris joins Dauntless, and jumps from a moving elevated train onto a rooftop, and then deep into a building (this is not a film for acrophobics). Unfortunately, most of her training takes place in “The Pit,’’ which looks very much like an ’80s health club, complete with rock-climbing walls.
The brutal training is presided over by the sadistic Eric (Jai Courtney), who promises that anyone that doesn’t make the cut will end up as a faction-less street person.
Luckily for Tris, Eric’s deputy — a smoldering hunk named Four (a somewhat stiff Theo James) — has her back, and is clearly hoping for more, though (a la “Twilight’’) in one chastely romantic moment, our heroine informs him she’s “saving herself.’’
Woodley, a TV actress who broke into the mainstream as George Clooney’s alienated daughter in “The Descendants,’’ does reasonably well with her underwritten part, which invites unflattering comparisons with Jennifer Lawrence’s star-making work in the “Hunger Games’’ movies. Woodley’s action sequences are so heavily edited, I wondered how often a double was employed, but it certainly doesn’t hurt that she has palpable chemistry with James.
Miles Teller — Woodley’s co-star in “The Spectacular Now’’ — has a couple of good scenes as a Dauntless trainee who tries to bully Tris, but Zoë Kravitz and Ben Lloyd-Hughes have little but reaction shots as her pals in the faction.
Kate Winslet is woefully miscast as the Hillary Clinton-esque leader of Erudite, whose scheming — which doesn’t really hold up to any kind of scrutiny — drives the plot as the film stumbles into its third hour. It does provide Ashley Judd, who nabs third billing for a much smaller role than Winslet’s, with the chance to wield a gun for the first time since her early stardom in thrillers more than a decade ago.
“Divergent’’ is directed by Neil Burger (“Limitless’’) with more efficiency than inspiration, and on what was clearly a limited budget (a massive attack by digital birds looks far more primitive than anything Alfred Hitchcock managed half a century ago).
Two sequels derived from Veronica Roth’s novels have already been announced. Hopefully, they’ll have more personality than this clunker.