Young Adult Month - The Divergent Series: Insurgent

In the not too distant future, after a disaster takes place

A nerdy guy with Rage Issues, among the last of the human race

He was just a media nerd, he ranted a lot, it was quite absurd

But he was special for some reason, so bad men decided it was Rage Issues season

He’ll star in 3 movies, 4 if we squeeze him dry

He’ll go and join a rebel force, as he’ll slowly lose his mind

Now keep in mind, he’s just a guy, no different from you or me

So, he’ll have to learn how to survive, with the help of YA Movies

Franchise Roll call:

Hunger Games

Maze Runner

Diiiiiiiivergent

If you’re wondering how he posts his thoughts, and who he’s posting for

Repeat to yourself, it’s just a theme, and think about it no more

It’s Young Adult Month!

Yay, we’re continuing with Divergent movies. I suppose I made it clear during the last one, but I’ll reiterate. The Divergent books are overlong and bloated with character choices that don’t make any sense. The plot rips off tropes from other, better books, and there’s nothing in this series that isn’t done better somewhere else. That said, the plot of the books is fairly solid and when they get the characters right, they get it right, the dialogue is another thing entirely.

But enough about that, this is the Divergent Series: Insurgent

Pre-production for this film had begun before the first film was even out, which allowed it to release only a year later. This implies Entertainment One clearly had confidence in the success of the first one, confidence that was rewarded to an extent with Box Office Receipts. The director of the first film was still working on that film, so it was announced the new director would be Robert Schwentke, the director of R.I.P.D. (oh god, that’s not good), who went on to produce Allegiant as well (great…) With a larger budget of $110 million to work with, the film was absolutely blasted by critics, gathering a meagre 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an 5/10 average score, and an audience rating of 58% with an average 3.5/5, it earned slightly more at the box office with $297.3m, but compared to the other two franchises, Hunger Games’ sequel made more than double that with only a slightly larger budget. The Scorch Trials made slightly more but on about half the budget. But to business, what is this film really like?

So, Erudite and Jeannine in particular have blamed the attack on abnegation on group of rogue Divergents. Our heroes, Tris, Four, Caleb, Marcus and Peter are in Amity but soon Erudite arrive searching for Divergents, apparently you can scan for them now, don’t remember that ever being a thing. Why not just have a scan instead of the choosing trials, it’s only slightly more stupid?

Anyway, our heroes escape, sans Peter and Marcus, meet up with Four’s mother, now leading the factionless, they head to Candor, where a lot of Dauntless have ended up after the simulation, including Christina and have to undergo a trial under truth serum, where a heartbroken Tris admits to killing Will, driving a rift in the relationship between her and Christina… that’s barely gonna be touched upon so don’t even worry about it.

Candor is attacked by Erudite and it’s revealed that Tris isn’t just Divergent, she’s 100% Divergent… Wait what? I’ll get back to that, anyway, apparently someone like her is needed to open a box Jeannine stole from Abnegation. It’s a plot mcguffin, let’s be real here, one that isn’t in the book and doesn’t make any sense, why would Jeannine assume it contains some anti-divergent message?

Anyway, thanks to simulation-based suicide, they convince Tris to surrender to her and she goes through simulations of… wait a minute! Isn’t Tris immune to simulations like this, wasn’t that the whole reason she survived the last movie? Anyway, what the message actually reveals is that Veronica Roth decided to stop ripping off the Hunger Games and instead rip off the Maze runner instead.

This movie feels like if you take the Insurgent book, take out the book’s climax, remove the tedious padding but at the same time remove all the character development, add a flimsy motivation for Caleb to turn which is more than the book ever offered, add in Tris being super special, even though she only tested positive for 3 factions not 5, and do a complete role reversal on Jeannine and Tris’ mother. Also, make Four’s mother more sympathetic for some reason, you were aware what happens in the next book, right?

Essentially, it’s all plot and little substance, they gloss over Tris’ guilt for having killed Will, in the book she became practically suicidal because of this. They gloss just about everything regarding Four, particularly the complicated relationship he has with his father, his fears being exposed to the public and his reaction to Tris’ thoughts causing a rift between them.

I do kinda like they gave Peter more screen time, I like Miles Teller and Peter really doesn’t have a lot to do in the book, and what they give us is true to character, even if there still isn’t very much to him. Of course Shaine Woodley is still the best actor in the movie, she still gives it her all even when she has little to work with.

So let’s talk about the stupid simulation stuff, shall we, there are 2 things re-contextualised from the book in the movie. But realising Four was a sim being proof of Erudite qualities is so so stupid, since only a Divergent can do that. This series has too much jargon, doesn’t it?

The action is scaled down in most places, most of the assault on Erudite takes place off screen, so we can do the matrix stuff with Tris. It also condenses the climax into an earlier section of the book, which means the movie isn’t as long, which I’m kinda thankful for.

Aside from that, all I can say is that ending shot of the CGI city looked f*cking dreadful and went on for too long.

The Divergent Series maintains mediocrity but this time makes stupid changes from the book as well, removing a lot of its character in the process.

Rating 40/100