User reviews

Not sure why I'm giving it a 2 but suffice to say this movie was SO bad. I don't understand the wide discrepancy of reviews. Those who thought it was the best thing ever must have been extras or something and want the movie to succeed. I did not read the book. My daughter, who did, came along (she's 14) and she could barely stand to remain until it finished.

Even without have read the book, the story was flawed on so many levels, the acting was average at best. It was just a dull, lifeless movie.

Don't waste your time or your $$.

Yet another shallow and predictable lesson in morality from Hollywood. Worse still, this tale has been done before. The similarities to Equilibrium and Aeon Flux verge on plagiarism in my opinion. Not to say morality lessons can't be done well, see District 9 and Elysium, but they are usually done badly, see Hunger Games and this effort. We all know Utopia drives humans nuts (Matrix, where they had to introduce misery to make it work), we all know utopias unravel when humans realise they can have freedom instead of paradise(Forbidden Planet) the story is thousands of years old (Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden). It really is time for Hollywood to get some good ideas. There is no shortage of good books waiting to be made into movies. Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven for a start. Dreadful rubbish, don't waste your time or money.

I didn't read the book, so I can't tell the difference between the book and the movie.

What I can say is that this movie is a boring, agonizingly boring psychological drama with no action, interminable dialogs and a story totally unoriginal and already saw innumerable times before, in "1984" (which was wrote in 1948), "brave new world" (1931), "the Logan's run"(1976) and "THX 1138" (1971): a despotic, dystopian society that manipulates the emotions of people.

Also don't understand the fuss about the book, that was wrote in 1993, also absolutely unoriginal.

All the movie (except the FX scenes at the end) could be made with 2000$.

Mundane. . . Uneventful. . . Bland are the three keywords that entered my mind after viewing this well publicized showing of "The Giver". The movie itself lost much of its interesting context due to the need to sway from the original storyline of the book. Jeff Bridges gives an excellent performance that provided some interesting viewpoints that kept me from leaving but Meryl Streep's performance was lack luster as her role had nothing much to add that moved anyone or anything. Perhaps if this film landed prior to Hunger Games and a few others it might have produced some emotional sparks for the viewing audience. This is a movie that you should wait and view on Netflex or some other Internet outlet when you need to be entertained and not really stimulated.

I wish The Giver would give me my money back. Made the horrible decision to see this movie without seeing the previews. It was basically just the same old tale again of a rebellious teen that's going to save the world. Jeff Bridges was good in his role but couldn't carry the whole movie, and you could almost tell he didn't want to be there. It could have been an interesting concept of a film, but came up terribly short. Katie Holmes played a bitchy woman very well, even though there's not supposed to be emotional. All I saw in her was moody yes woman. I would rather have waited it for it to come out on TV, not even Blu-Ray, or HBO. But on a Saturday afternoon movie with the old repeats of Mr. Mom.

Back in the seventh grade, I had to read a book for class called "The Giver". I wasn't that interested in the book when I first read it, but that was because I never got excited. I felt a little bored by the story and failed to interpret it. Last year, I had to read it again for a college class, which was on young adult novels. When I read it again, I really appreciated the book a lot more at age 23 than I did at age 13. It's a shame because the story aims at that kid-teen transition period that my class was going through back then and did a great job at selling that coming-of-age message, and now, I have to defend the book against this heinous film adaptation. I don't want to go into too much detail on what it got wrong, but what tipped me off the most was the character, Jonas. In the book, he's a 12-year old. Here, he's 16 YEARS OLD! Even more flabbergasting is that the actor playing him is in his MID- TWENTIES! That's way past the description of Jonas given in the book. I'm only going to mention that part, but trust me, the movie didn't stop there. This YA- adaptation tries to cater to the high-school audiences waiting for the next Hunger Games and Divergent sequels. Instead, it spits on the actual coming-of-age morals displayed in the source material.

Another boring "I am a rebel teenager" movie. If you seen any of The Hunger Games /Divergent / The Maze - and have higher IQ than room temperature or age above 12 - don't bother watching it... It takes about roughly 10 minutes into the movie so you can tell the end of it.

1. Teenager hero gets selected as he is special 2. Cruel adults oppressing the society 3. Teeneger rebels 4. Brings down the current order. 5. End

Can't Hollywood make something new?:P Really just reboots and 1.5 hour movies that would more fit for 40 min TV series (for kid's, as even when they die or fighting with someone, there is no blood...come on)

There are some pretty awful failed utopia tracts out there and The Giver is among the worst of them. The film misses no cheap shot, from killing babies to daily injections to supress emotions. An underwhelming lead actor and sub-par performances from Bridges and Streep add to the lacklustre atmosphere. The pacing is ponderous and reverential. This has all been done before in various forms, from Logan's Run to Harrison Bergeron.

Like many modern films, technically accomplished - the main problems lie in the source material and the script, which refuse to depart from the tropes of a tired and much abused genre.

No diversity in the future. Completely unrealistic. I hope. It's hard to get past that. The Movie starts off interesting i just couldn't get into it especially the scene with babies, i thought to myself, are you kidding me? How could this movie be futuristic? How could the creative be so blind as to not include one person of color. In a leading role? I even read a lot of the other reviews and none mentioned this point. It's so disappointing to see movies like this because its so one sided. I think the best movies out there provide multiple perspective and for this to be the future, i decided to laugh because to me and many others im sure they started off on the wrong foot.

This movie, the giver, is less of adaptation of the novel, but somebody reading the novel and attempting to copy the story, except with major changes, for their own film. Its not book accurate besides a few key details, such as the characters, and the fact jonas wants to leave. This film basically became action, when the book wasnt close! Make it accurate to make it good please! (i have only put this review as spoilers due to the fact i mentioned that jonas rebels and leaves his community blah blah blah THIS MOVIE IS TERRIBLE DO NOT WATCH IT PLEASE IM ONLY GIVING IT 2 BECAUSE OF LIKE 2 BOOK ACCURATE THINGS)