Reviews: Divergent, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Frozen, and Lucy

***SPOILERS***

‘Divergent’ was a very interesting film. It had a good plot and good characters. There were criticisms of having society so rigidly divided into five factions (minus the factionless). Though, if you investigate any culture, there has always been a division of class, and different classes have always done different jobs. In England, for example, there were the peasants and the nobility/priests. Also, India had four classes: priests, governors/worriers, merchants, and servants. This is definitely an oversimplification, but it makes the point very clear.
‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ made for a great watch. It was interesting to see how the apes’ society had developed and how human society had fell. I only had one issue with the film which was the same issue I had with the last film: the apes standing upright. People, as always, equate intelligence with standing upright because humans are intelligent and they are the only animal to stand upright. This conclusion doesn’t logically follow. However, this has been a key paradigm in all human societies since forever, so it’s not a surprise that people make intelligent being upright, too.

‘Frozen’. Yes, I joined the bandwagon late, but I’ve never been on to conform to the popular interests of the time. The film first caught my interest when I was in the kitchen with some friends and they were playing the film. The ice and snow and the magic instantly appealed to my love of fantasy and solid ice.

I watched it from just before ‘Let It Go’ came on. Idina Menzel’s voice is really spectacular.  I took to the song, because I instantly thought of it in regards to surviving depression, particularly ‘I’ll rise like the break of dawn […] Here I stand in the light of day’. (It was interesting when researching the song afterwards that people had interpreted it as coming out as homosexual!) Another song caught my attention: ‘For the First Time in Forever Reprise’. Songs in which two people are singing different words in a different time frame always appeal to me.

And, of course, an interpretation of true love being sisterly love. It was liberating to have the message that true love doesn’t come in one form. Maleficent had the theme of motherly love. Hopefully Disney will explore true love as the love portrayed between friends at some point!

‘Lucy’ was fascinating. Having Morgan Freeman in it made it brilliant.

The concept of the film was based on the theory that humans only use 10% of their brain and hypothesising what would happen if humans could access control of the rest of their brain. If accepting this theory, then the hypothesises in the film were definitely logical (and perhaps plausible). For this, the surrounding plot, the need for Lucy to try and retain some semblance of humanity and fantastic actors, this film was great.

However, this theory of 10% is not plausible. If a person gets brain damaged in any area of the brain, there will be a corresponding ability that will be effected. Language, memory, perception, emotions, anything, can be effected. If only 10% of the brain was used, then how would each area of the brain be able to control something?