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Niel Burger

Divergent * Neil Burger (2014)

Another film that does not rise above the level of average. “Divergent” opens with an elaborate description of the world in which everything but one city is destroyed. In this city a rigid system reminding of the Hindu varna-ashrama is created to maintain peace. The biggest difference with the Hindu system is that youngsters who turn adolescents can switch “virtue”, but this is not common.

We follow Beatrice/Tris who switches “virtue”. All the before is used to make a film of Tris’ hardships in her training for her chosen “virtue”. Of course Tris is different, falls in love with one of her leaders and proves brilliant after a difficult start of her education. Nothing surprising here.

The film gets a 6.9 on IMDb. A way too high rating in my opinion. “Divergent” is again a teen/youth film and I guess it is mostly the same ago who rate films and apparently like films about people of the same age.

In any case, like I say of many films recently, “Divergent” is not bad or boring, but neither a film that needs to come up anywhere at the top of you to-see-list.

Limitless * Neil Burger (2011)

Eddie is a writer with a writer’s block. Then he runs into his former brother in law who gives him a pill that gives access to the unused 80% of the brain. Eddie (of course) soon is addicted and flies up the ladder of society with his superfast mind and analytical skills. The story is a pretty Western. The 80% are apparently only used to make all information “catalogued and immediately available”. Eddie can learn and take up information extremely fast which draws him to the stockmarkets where he soon gets a lot of attention. Naturally people want what he has and then he discovers that he is not the only user and so a thriller unfolds. “Limitless” has some hip (and rather irritating and obviously) computerised scenes that apparently try to give the film an “Inception“-like feeling. This does not succeed! The film is better in the normal scenes in which it is a not so bad thriller. The story is nicely thought of and partly worked out alright, but it could have been much better. Especially towards the end it seemed as if the inspiration of the writers lost inspiration. The end result is a good, but just a little above average, modern thriller.