I was the divergent opinion on Divergent but I respect the passion for it, so I wanted to see what the Blu-ray had to offer fans of the film and books. The presentation of the film is Dauntless, though I have to be Candor about the lackluster bonus features.
Divergent looks great on Blu-ray, and that’s the only thing that really matters. If you loved the movie, you can own and keep the highest quality version of it. The futuristic Chicago looks sharp and crisp as the skyscrapers are retouched to have the top levels look decrepit, with intricate detail visible in HD, although occasional CGI shots are given away by the quality of the Blu-ray. That speeding train looks like an animated train.
The light provides some beautiful color in the world of Divergent. It’s most vivid in the tattoo parlor, but also the red flares of the night training exercises. Even daytime shots of future Chicago have a sort of glow to them. Of course, the choosing ceremony is a potpourri of colors from the costumes of the five different factions.
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If you were hoping to explore the world of Divergent, I would imagine you’ll be even more disappointed than I am. I was only exploring the Blu-ray as a fan of movies and Blu-rays in general and I found it lacking in content. If you’re a real Divergent fan, you’d have to be torn between knowing most of this already and feeling a persistent lack of depth to the bonus content.
The fact that there are only four and a half minutes of deleted scenes suggests that most of what was shot ended up in the movie, or they are saving the juiciest scenes for an eventual special edition. Two of those minutes include a small subplot about an injured trainee that demonstrates the intensity of Dauntless training. The rest add little else, except giving Miles Teller an extra moment.
“Bringing Divergent To Life” is a 47-minute behind the scenes documentary in several parts. Unfortunately, most of it is very superficial, just sound bites from the cast on set, filmmakers in a studio, with only the most basic themes like “training was hard” and “Chicago was cool.” To be fair, the training portion does show the actors giving their all and fight choreographer J.J. Perry showing them a thing or two. When it comes to the visual effects, they do illustrate some of the digital trickery you might take for granted. I took it for granted that the mirror scene could be done with actual mirrors, like Enter the Dragon. No, it’s much more complex than that.
I’m just surprised how this much attention was given to different aspects of the film only to make them feel completely rote. If you’ve ever seen a DVD before, they will look like generic behind the scenes standards, and if this is your first, it will be too fleeting to provide you any education. It just skips through montages of B-roll while the actors tell you the plot and the filmmakers tell you how great the actors were.
If you are really looking to explore the making of Divergent, at least the commentary tracks are good. They each give quite different takes on the film too. Director Neil Burger is mostly explaining the thematic reasons for his choices, pointing out how costumes and visual effects articulate the themes of Veronica Roth’s book. Producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fischer share more behind the scenes anecdotes, although they run out of steam and there’s a lot more dead air on their track. Early on, they tease some new scenes added to Allegiant just to give a certain character more to do, and I’m a little surprised they alluded to some hanky-panky behind the scenes. Being producers, I’d expect them to be more reserved. Burger is the one who will explain how the movie was made, but more importantly why he made the choices he made.
My review of the Blu-ray is as mixed as my review of the film itself, but because the transfer is so strong, I can lean more towards the positive side. If you just watched the Blu-ray with Burger’s commentary, you’d think it was a top-notch production. However, those may be the only divergent material in a collection that’s otherwise very mediocre.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
