6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Set in a futuristic dystopia, a teenager seeks to break free from her homogeneous society that divides people based on human traits. She leaves her faction and joins a rival group, where she falls for a young man.
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Ray StevensonAdventure | 100% |
Action | 92% |
Sci-Fi | 57% |
Teen | 33% |
Romance | 21% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Divergent probably seemed like a sure thing to the bean counters at Summit Entertainment, a once relatively lowly studio that suddenly found itself flirting with “majors” status with its releases of such Young Adult magnets as Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga, while its corporate partner Lionsgate hit similar paydirt with The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. There’s little doubt that the worldwide phenomenon of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games franchise sparked interest in Divergent from the get go, for the two share several salient characteristics. Both feature a dystopian future world ruled over by a seemingly benevolent but obviously fascistic government (or at least a society with fascistic elements), and both offer a plucky heroine who doesn’t quite fit in with the proscriptions of her society. Add just the brim of Harry Potter’s so- called “sorting hat” dividing that society into various skill based groups, and it becomes obvious that Divergent was a seemingly infallible recipe for box office superiority. And truth be told, judging simply by ticket receipts, Divergent’s first chapter (of a multi-film franchise, of course) did stellar business, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, a sum which is only set to explode now that ancillaries like home video are kicking in. But the very fact that everything from The Hunger Games to (perhaps whimsically) Harry Potter can be cited when talking about the film points up the franchise’s major deficit: Divergent is derivative.
Divergent is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa series, this high definition presentation offers superior sharpness and clarity but an intentional lack of color and pop almost all of the time. From the dusty fields surrounding Chicago, to the somewhat decrepit scenes of the metropolis itself, Divergent starts in tones of gray and brown and rarely varies from them, with a couple of notable exceptions. Even the fact that Tris ends up in Dauntless, a faction that typically wears dark black, keeps the palette here from ever exploding in any meaningful way. That said, when there are pops of color —as when the initiates slice open their hands to bleed into bowls designating the five different available groups—things look vivid and accurate. There are also a couple of sequences in the offices of Jeanine (the character played by Kate Winslet), where suddenly things are bright white almost to the point of blooming. But contrast is strong enough to rein in this tendency, and to also provide nice differentiation and detail in such locations as The Pit, the kind of ice white hub that serves as a gathering place for Dauntless members. There are several CGI elements (as should be expected), especially once Tris starts "tripping" in simulations meant to test her capabilities, and sometimes those elements look just slightly soft compared to the bulk of this enterprise. Fine detail is exceptional in close-ups and even midrange shots (look at the little loose threads in Tris' sweater in screenshot 5), and though probably digitally manipulated, some of the exterior shots posit great depth of field. No problematic artifacts were in evidence throughout this presentation.
Divergent's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix is about what you'd expect for a blockbuster like this: it's big, it's noisy and it's filled to
the
brim with great sound effects ricocheting around the surround channels. Everything from nice panning sounds when the elevated trains zoom
through
Chicago to the punch of automatic gunfire in one of several climactic shootouts provides a glut of immersive activity that makes the soundtrack a
lot of
fun to listen to. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and the film's kind of house score (by Junkie XL) is well placed through the surrounds and
sounds
clear as a bell. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range is extremely wide on this problem free track.
Note: While this played faultlessly on my PS3, i had problems with audio dropping out when I utilized PowerDVD in my PC drive.
PowerDVD is
one of the glitchier programs I've ever used, so my hunch is it's a program issue rather than a disc one, but I thought it was worth mentioning
here.
- Theatrical Trailer 1 (1080p; 2:33)
- Theatrical Trailer 2 (1080p; 2:31)
- Poster Gallery (1080p)
Hey, Tris herself almost gets thrown out of Dauntless at one point, so even those who don't start particularly strong can finish with a flourish, so the writing isn't totally on the wall for this franchise yet, and indeed the story will probably be fully told only when the second film is released. Divergent isn't perfect by any means, and suffers simply by coming after not one but two Hunger Games outings, but at least the foundation has been established for what could actually be a very exciting second chapter. Performances are solid here, but the film does suffer from excess (including a bloated running time). With stellar technical merits and enough good to outweigh the bad, Divergent comes Recommended.
Limited Edition
2014
2014
Bonus Disc
2014
2014
2014
Limited Edition
2014
The Divergent Series
2015
2018
2013
2017
The Divergent Series
2016
2014
2013
2018
2018
1998
2013
2014
2012
2009
2016
Live. Die. Repeat.
2014
Cinematic Universe Edition
2014
2015
2013
2015