More aptly named “DERIVATIVE”, this YA coming-of-age fantasy faintly echoes what comes before – it makes THE HUNGER GAMES (2012) look almost literary by comparison, via an appealing female lead (though Shailene Woodley is no Jennifer Lawrence), a dystopian society (though not as in-depth or satirical) with a conniving but one-dimensional villain (on this, Kate Winslet ties with Donald Sutherland), and a chaste teen romance a la TWILIGHT (2008). The training sequences are a pale imitation of STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), PACIFIC RIM (2013) or even the the flawed ENDER’S GAME (2013). I even half-expected the film to crack open the tried-and-tested “your world is a nested subroutine” trick from GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995), THE MATRIX (1999) or INCEPTION (2010) – though thankfully, we didn’t have to see a ‘hacked’ version of that … Overall, mildly diverting if you like this sort of thing.
As an aside, I have heard said that the movie is better than the books, in which case I’d like to (1) congratulate the 20-something Ms Roth on being able to rake in so much $$$ with so little effort, and (2) officially warn anyone against reading them ..
WetWareGames 