s-16089 The book is significantly different from the book in one they changed the movie into more of a romance. The chief of elders is antagonist, Asher is more mature and more serious,And fiona starts have feelings, And added a whole bunch of random scenes. I understand that they changed up the movie to be more dramatic and attract the young adult and tween audiences but they could have been better in my opinion. I rate it a 5.

dreamlife613 I'll start by saying that I did read the book many years ago in school and thought it was a good book at the time with an interesting, unexpected twist. I never went back to re-read it so while I knew what the gist of the story was, I didn't remember all the details.As a movie, I thought it was just OK. It wasn't bad, but there were several things keeping it from being great. First, the focus was on Jonas and The Giver moreso than any of the other characters, which made it hard to sympathize with the society. The actor playing Jonas was fine, not very memorable though. I would have liked to understand the perspectives of Fiona and Asher rather than just see them the way Jonas does - in broad strokes. The release of memories from The Giver to Jonas could have been shown or explained differently as I did not really understand how that process worked. Were they sharing a psychic link? Was there a chip embedded in their wrists allowing the transfers? Also, sometimes Jonas would see things as if he were living the past memories while other times it was more like he was seeing everything play out like a movie or something. Finally, the ending was not very satisfying. I won't spoil anything but there were things that happened that did not feel realistic or believable at all. The final scene was confusing. I would say if you have nothing else to watch and are interested in a fairly PG story, this is a pretty good one. So many TV and movies are so focused on violence, sex, and darkness that it is kind of nice to have a straight forward movie that makes you think a little in the process of watching it.

thekarmicnomad This is a a dystonian world everyone is happy and peaceful but without emotions or free will. Until the main character shows up.We have been here before, but this is a nice attempt at a retelling. The production and camera work is quite nice and the acting is pretty good. The awakening of the senses is well handled and is the high light of the film.For me though this film was doomed from the start. The dystopia is actually quite appealing. We are told that no one has emotions, yet they do - otherwise the audience wouldn't engage with the characters - they are just dialled right back. So the writers have to throw in random problems to make the world worth rebelling against. So all of a sudden people are drowning babies for no apparent reason.The writing really fails near the end. As restrictive dystopias go the inhabitants here sure get a lot of space when they go rouge.Then with a few minutes of screen time left the writers have to end this thing some how. This seems an impossible task, so they throw a smoke bomb on the floor and do a runner out the fire escape in the confusion.Has promise and some really nice sequences, but is ultimately baffling and stupid.

krokoschilla So, I had to watch this movie because of a school project after reading the book and have to say, I was amazed at the awfulness. The effects weren't ... that bad, I have to admit. My biggest complaints are the script and the actors. The book is kinda strange but it has a few very important emotional scenes that were either skipped completely or that were delivered so badly I wanted to chuck my phone at the screen. Okay, you may say that the people in this movie are supposed to have no real emotions and that's fine! But if you deliver these 'emotional' scenes without ever showing a reaction from the one guy having emotions (Thwaites) then that's just idiotic. The movie was chaotic, sometimes we all just sat there and frowned at the screen. There were a few 'twists' in the movie that were painfully obvious even if they didn't happen in the book. The few good (experienced) actors that were in this thing were apparently determined to deliver their worst performance yet. The main characters' (Thwaites and the love-interest) acting was so painful I could barely stand to watch it. Thwaites always had this look of vague awe on his face even if it didn't fit. The love-interest's actress was one of those actresses where they are completely unremarkable. One thing however stood out. Their laughter sounded so fake it hurt!Another major problem I have with this movie is 'the Giver'. Somehow, every scene with him and Thwaites has this sexual vibe going on which is really sickening if you consider the fact Thwaites' supposed to be sixteen in this and 'the Giver's about sixty. It really creeped us all out. In conclusion (because I have to cut this short) it's awful. Don't watch it.