You can call this movie the bad counterpart of Hunger Games imitation 'Divergent'
What struck me immediately is that during the opening of 'The Giver' it is said that fear, pain, envy, hate are all eradicated, but within the first few minutes you see jealousy, doubt, disobedience, melancholy, disappointment and even talk about pain in a main public event. Within a world where this should've been non-existing (where people even got rid of seeing colors) this is a strong contradiction.
Unfortunately the movie never really recovers from this, and he predictability of the story did not help either. Since the main 'enemy' is (or should be) the lack of emotion in the society, which get undermined and contradicted constantly, the bases of the storyline is very thin. During the whole movie, but especially near the end of the movie, people pierce through this armor of neutrality, even while on the suppressing medicine. Also, from different 'hints' you could see there were already cracks in the foundation of the society even before the main character was chosen. So in the end I am left wandering that even without the main character, or if he was to fail, wouldn't it come all tumbling down eventually?
There are some things, besides the well done acting performance, that makes the movie differ from other movies. What makes 'The Giver' really unique is it's way it uses colors in its story development in combination with the visual appearance of the surroundings and sets. Even when everything else discarded this made the movie worth watching.
ps. maybe it is not fair comparing it to Hunger Games (so that's why I didn't besides in the first sentence) since it is derived from a book which is much older than the Hunger Games trilogy, but it really has many overlaps which could be because this movie was released after HG and there is a good chance it only made it to screen because of the HG. But what do I know? xD
Review by LainfanBlockedParentSpoilers2014-10-15T00:35:32Z
You can call this movie the bad counterpart of Hunger Games imitation 'Divergent'
What struck me immediately is that during the opening of 'The Giver' it is said that fear, pain, envy, hate are all eradicated, but within the first few minutes you see jealousy, doubt, disobedience, melancholy, disappointment and even talk about pain in a main public event. Within a world where this should've been non-existing (where people even got rid of seeing colors) this is a strong contradiction.
Unfortunately the movie never really recovers from this, and he predictability of the story did not help either. Since the main 'enemy' is (or should be) the lack of emotion in the society, which get undermined and contradicted constantly, the bases of the storyline is very thin. During the whole movie, but especially near the end of the movie, people pierce through this armor of neutrality, even while on the suppressing medicine. Also, from different 'hints' you could see there were already cracks in the foundation of the society even before the main character was chosen. So in the end I am left wandering that even without the main character, or if he was to fail, wouldn't it come all tumbling down eventually?
There are some things, besides the well done acting performance, that makes the movie differ from other movies. What makes 'The Giver' really unique is it's way it uses colors in its story development in combination with the visual appearance of the surroundings and sets. Even when everything else discarded this made the movie worth watching.
ps. maybe it is not fair comparing it to Hunger Games (so that's why I didn't besides in the first sentence) since it is derived from a book which is much older than the Hunger Games trilogy, but it really has many overlaps which could be because this movie was released after HG and there is a good chance it only made it to screen because of the HG. But what do I know? xD