Review: The Divergent Series: Allegiant
The latest, and mercifully penultimate, installment of The Divergent series, Allegiant won't certainly entice viewers who are unfamiliar with Veronica Roth's bestselling YA novels on which the films are based. Given the green light in the wake of The Hunger Games' blockbuster success, Divergent has always felt like a poor man's Games and its heroine, Tris Prior, just about the dullest ever created, even setting aside comparisons to the far more dynamic protagonist of The Hunger Games.
Allegiant is serviceable fare that may be better enjoyed when viewed as a comedy interrupted by some good action scenes and inhabited by a group of toned and tattooed teenagers furrowing their brows and flexing their muscles amidst semi-serious eugenistic prattle. Certainly there are enough plot holes to chuckle at, and several of the film's supporting players, particularly Miles Teller, attract one's attention and gratitude because of their ability to recognise and embrace how downright ridiculous the series has become.
The film takes place in the wake of the factions' collapse and the death of the dictatorial Jeanine (Kate Winslet). Allegedly factionless resistance leader Evelyn (Naomi Watts) hasn't exactly brought about the promised peace. Her citizens are braying for the flood of Jeanine's followers, including Tris' brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort), and the massive concrete wall separating this dystopian version of Chicago from the outside world is still unopened and now armed with an electrified fence. Naturally, Tris (Shailene Woodley) and her gang - brother Caleb, love interest and Evelyn's son Four (Theo James), best friend Christina (Zoë Kravitz), and the ever untrustworthy but always there Peter (Teller) - make a break for it, running vertically up the wall, dodging Evelyn's henchmen, arriving on the other side to discover a landscape resembling a Martian desert, and realising there's a second wall, which leads them to being welcomed by the populace of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare.
At last, Tris et al learn that Chicago and its factions were actually one big laboratory experiment, and that they have been under constant observation. As the Bureau's leader David (perhaps named as a nod to David Koresh, the notorious leader of the Branch Davidians religious sect) played by Jeff Daniels explains: Chicago was walled in, populated with genetically "damaged" inhabitants who were separated into factions to establish peace, with the end goal for the human genome to heal itself. All this because the government screwed up when they began manipulating human DNA to eradicate unwanted traits; their genetically modified citizens rose up in protest. Somehow Tris not only believes this claptrap, but defends David's intentions to the wary Four, who suspects there may be more to David and the Bureau than meets the eye.
It's best not to put too much effort into the details of the story. Instead, why not muse upon how considerate the dangerous red mist is to creep around our main characters, who must live to be in the final installment, whilst quickly decimating all the nameless, expendable Chicagoans. Or how the CGI can be both remarkably pronounced (is there a frame of this film that wasn't shot against a green screen?) and fairly inventive (the hiccuping magnified pixelations of the goings-on when viewed via the surveillance pod). Or how much more blonde and bronzed Woodley appears. Or how Woodley's expression runs the gamut from blank to blank with tears.
The Divergent Series: Insurgent
Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Written by: Noah Oppenheim, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage; adapted from Veronica Roth's novel
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Bill Skarsgård, Jonny Weston, Octavia Spencer, Zoë Kravitz, Ashley Judd, Daniel Dae Kim, Maggie Q, Ray Stevenson, Mekhi Phifer
