‘Divergent’ off to a slow, predictable start

It will seem familiar to you, their plight, their anguish, their struggle. You know how this story will go, even if you haven’t read the books. Surprises are few and far between, and plot lines do everything but deviate. Still, “Divergent,” which comes across as a hybrid of “Hunger Games” and “Twilight” with a dash of sci-fi, fights against the notion that we’ve had our fill of these post-apocalyptic, dystopian worlds where one character is going to save the world — or destroy it.

As Kate Winslet says, her voice laced with a biting contempt, “there’s a certain beauty in your resistance.” And so there is with “Divergent,” the latest in book-to-film adaptations featuring a less-than-ideal world with a hero-in-the-making. You may know this story, but that’s OK. You still want to watch it play out.

“Divergent,” like “Hunger Games,” opens in a dystopian society, several centuries removed from our modern day. Enclosed behind an intimidatingly enormous fence, the citizens of this altered Chicago live in world where society takes a sharp bent toward fascism, where children are asked of a loyalty on the verge of fanaticism.

Click here to read the full review at TDN.com.

Three diverging stars out of five.

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Shailene Woodley (left) and Theo James star in “Divergent.” (Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk/MCT)