When we last left Tris (Shailene Woodley), she was on the run from the government, represented by Erudite leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) as well as her soldiers.
Hiding among the Factionless, Tris and her boyfriend Four (Theo James) wait for their opportunity to expose and topple Jeanine, while bolstering numbers by recruiting disenfranchised citizens.
Jeanine discovers a mysterious box that she feels only a Divergent can open. When Tris successfully opens the box, she releases a secret that changes everyone’s lives forever, in the dystopian walled city of Chicago, perhaps for the entire world.
We say, “If it hadn’t before, it has stopped making sense since.”
TAYLOR: The first in this exquisitely silly post-apocalyptic teen franchise promised that the possible answers to come in the second chapter would disappoint, likely infuriate reasonable viewers expecting a sensible plot.
In this effort, the filmmakers have greatly exceeded even my jaded and somewhat ignorant view on the matter (having not read the books) by changing the story to such a degree as to anger fans of the work, before the movie came out.
I didn’t know about these changes until after seeing the film.
I felt compelled to look up the plots of the series to see if my wife and I were correct in our simultaneous assessment that this story makes no sense and is probably stupid. It turns out the film had a little more help than the book.
HOWE: I’m a little disappointed. The first installment I found to be OK. This one I found a few things wrong with it.
The first problem I had was with the length of the film, around the two hour mark. It’s a little long and contained way too many unneeded shots. As I said about the first part, it could easily be cut by 15 minutes and you would get the same effect.
They could have made two semi-decent films out of the four parts (yes, look out for parts three and four in 2016 and 17).
The battle scenes are another let down. Film companies have a fair bit of money to blow on something like this, but when there are these huge battles for survival, there is only about 20 people fighting the war. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. I think the producer or director should have watched the last Hunger Games movie to see how a battle should be filmed.
Don’t get me started on the dress sense. They are even worse than the ‘70s movie ideas of how we dress in the future. Are there no fashion designers in this post-apocalyptic hell?
TAYLOR: At the end of this film, the audience is treated to a great secret that you shouldn’t believe nor find entertaining, because it is ridiculous. In essence, the old society (outside the walls) set up the faction system based on personalities because they knew eventually there would be people who wouldn’t fit into a faction and those people would be the new leaders, proving that humans could live together again.
To which I ask flabbergasted, “What?!” I guess failure equals success in a Divergent universe, so I’ll just congratulate the filmmakers and move on.
– Taylor gives Insurgent 0 writing lessons out of 5.
– Howe gives it 2 really bad jumpsuits out of 5.
