I saw Divergent

Before we begin, I'm a HUGE fan of the books.

I also know that a written medium and a visual medium are VERY different... and sometimes changes need to be made.

via wikipedia

My views of the movie.  (In bullet points)

• Theo James's last role with an American accent MUST have been set in Boston.  His Four has a bit of that Boston accent.
• I totally spotted the Veronica Roth's cameo!
• The narration at the beginning?  Necessary.  
• People have accused the other characters to be a little one-dimensional.  Isn't that by design?  Like... what the faction system breeds and values?
• They GREATLY expanded the role of Jeanine Matthews.  In the book she was the mastermind.  The architect of the awfulness... but mostly in lip-service only.  IN the movie she's on screen explaining the awfulness.  I was OK with this.
• The end... they didn't get the hard drive with the data!  I need to re-read Insurgent to see if this will be a problem
• Al's end seemed too abrupt.  The book laid a better foundation for it.
• Natalie Prior is written as more of a bad ass.  I with we could have seen that more.  Especially at the end.
• Peter needed to be more... psychotic.  The movie paints him as a dick.  But the character should be a psychotic dick.
• The book takes pains to show the difference between Four's ideals as a Dauntless (Bravery and honor) and Eric's Dauntess (He's a straight up Sadist).  The movie made it more subtle.
• I missed the small things:  visiting day.  Dauntless cake.  (Damnit.. now I want chocolate cake)

via people.com

I really enjoyed Shailene Woodley's Tris.  Tris isn't an extraordinary person like Katniss.  She's a person that has more sides to her than the average Faction member.  I think the choice in actress was a great one.  

I even liked Theo James in the role of Four.  

Like any first of a series, it laid the foundation of the world.  I'm very interested to see what happens next.  How they take the changes in the end of the movie and translate it to the beginning of Insurgent.  (Spoiler alert.. the end of the book is very different)

One thing that is lost when you take away the first person narration is the insight into what Tris is thinking.  Why did she chose Dauntless?  In her mind, she wasn't good enough to be Abnegation.  (The movie touches on this.. but not enough, in my opinion).

This is why she chose Dauntless: