Insurgent
Year: 2015
Rating: PG-13
Length: 119 minutes / 1.98 hours
If The Hunger Games has given us anything from this uprising of Young Adult film adaptations, it’s that each successive film is released in each successive year. There’s no waiting for years for the next part of the trilogy to come out, only to have characters cast differently. The Divergent series is no different, but still stands in the shadow of its Hunger Games predecessor.
This time around, we get the pleasure of Robert Schwentke directing the post-apocalyptic action. With his previous films like RED (2010) and The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009), it’s clear he can handle action as much as he can romance. While the action is excellent, the romance seemed to be a little lacking. Having read this book after watching the film, the plots start to diverge a bit (ha ha, get it?) almost in part due to the removal of the more sexually-charged relationship between Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James).
Since the focus of the film is mostly on the action, the Divergent simulations were quite visually interesting, with the real-world action almost seeming tame in comparison. Sure, some of the characters, like Peter (Miles Teller) were grating and obnoxious, but unfortunately added to the plot. Some of the trouble I’m starting to have with this series is being unable to clearly see the inevitable conflict of the trilogy. Sure, the ending of Insurgent had some amount of closure in a plotline mostly disconnected from the first film, but at least it led toward something to be used for the plot of the final films. It just really felt like not much had happened between the plot of two movies.
A pretty consistent sequel to the fist film, both in plot twists, progression, and cliches, I give Insurgent 3.5 stars out of 5.
