To be honest I was surprised that the sequel to last year’s Divergent has come out last week.  I haven’t watched a lot of television these past few days so the movie’s release totally missed my radar.  Or maybe it was just poor marketing, I don’t know.  I first saw the teaser trailer when I saw Maze Runner and remember being mildly shocked that the film makers decided to forgo the Mockingjay way of wigging it and just rocking the lead actress’ pixie cut.

Anywho, here’s the round up of Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife) Insurgent.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

Erudite leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) has upped the ante and has started to utilize the remaining Dauntless faction, led by Eric (Jai Courtney – I, Frankenstein) and Max (Mekhi Phifer – Dawn of the Dead) – to openly hunt Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley – The Fault in Our Stars), Four (Theo James – Divergent), Caleb (Ansel Elgort – Carrie) and Peter (Miles Teller – Two Night Stand).  She has used her power and influence to convince the rest of the factions – including Amity leader Johanna (Octavia Spencer – Snowpiercer) and Candor leader Jack Kang (Daniel Dae Kim – Hawaii Five-0) – that the attack that led to the death of most of the Abnegation members was purely because of the Divergent rebels.

Tough break for Tris, who is not only dealing with the monumental guilt at having inadvertently been the cause of the death of her fellow Abegnation but with also the guilt of killing her Dauntless friend Will, the lover of her best friend Christina (Zoe Kravitz – After Earth).  Because all the other factions under Erudite’s control, their little group of rebel bandits has no other choice but to go to the Factionless, led by Four’s mother Evelyn (Naomi Watts – Birdman).  Tensions rise between mother and son when Evelyn is pushes for an all out war against Erudite.

Meanwhile, Jeanine has found a box in the debris of the Prior house, a box that she believes was left to them by the founders that holds the secret to eradicating the Divergent problem.  Unfortunately, the box can only be opened by a Divergent strong enough to pass the simulations for all the different factions.

THE GOOD:

1. Naomi Watts as a brunette!!!  She should totally keep this hair color, it makes her look younger.

   

2. Four as a character.  I loved that not only was Four the voice of reason in the film, he was also the only one with a solid plan.  While Tris was being all whiny and emo, Four was already calculating the steps to get to where they needed to be next.  All throughout the film I kept on thinking how more interesting the movie would have been had they made it about Four’s story.

   

3. Kate Winslet, just like the previous film, was deliciously icy.  Despite being the biggest star in the film, her screen presence still wasn’t jarring at all.

   

4. The pixie cut did help a little bit in making me believe that Tris was some sort of a bad ass.

   

THE BAD:

1. Miles Teller’s hair.  It’s such a douchey hairstyle, omygod.

   

2. The diminished chemistry between the leads.  Apparently the chemistry between Four and Tris only worked so well in Divergent because of the will-they-or-won’t-they crap.  Now that that’s out of the way and that they have an established relationship, the chemistry has gone down to absolutely zilch.  It’s almost painful to look at them together, kissing and whatnot, because of the awkwardness.

   

3. The plot point that they totally ripped off from Romeo and Juliet.   Paralytics?  Fake death?  Really?
4. Shaileene Woodley, despite the bad ass hair, was still unbelievable as someone who can kick ass.  She still looks frail.  There’s a scene in the movie where Tris and Four were walking in a path littered with boulders and Four had to help her down a couple of them.  Come on, I don’t want to see the action hero of the film being assisted!

   

THE UGLY:

1. Tris as a character.  God, was she annoying.  I mean, I get that the novel is Young Adult but wow that’s a shitty lead character.  All she does in the film is whine and be angry.  Perfectly relatable if you’re an emo teenager but not really effective in making me believe that she’s ‘the chosen one’, the perfect balance of all the factions.   It would’ve made more sense if Four was the one who could unlock the box.
2. The Miaka Syndrome.  I think Tris’ whininess would have been bearable had she not been the “chosen one”.  That just elevates her to Mary Sue levels and her angst – the whole ‘this is all my fault, they’re all dead because of me’ – was totally unrelatable to me.  I know that we’re not supposed to compare, but at least Katniss’ motivations were selfish; that’s a more realistic presentation of human emotions and this whole bleeding heart thing just irks me.
3. The lack of CCTVs.  They expect me to believe that they have the technology to create machines that can dissect a person’s genetic predispositions down to the last percentage, but they don’t have cameras?  I keep thinking that the hunt for Tris Prior would’ve been significantly quicker had they the necessary surveillance equipment.  I mean, it wasn’t like she was being careful or anything.

All in all Insurgent was a meh movie.  Perfectly passable as far as sequels go, because the film did present the necessary twists to move the plot forward, but once again there’s just something missing.  I still don’t know what that is, because formulaically the film has everything it needs to make it a good movie – capable leads, a whooping big budget to spend on excellent CGIs, an evil villain, etc – but it still turned out to be a so-so movie.

THE VERDICT: 6/10.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.