I very quickly read Divergent, the first installment of Veronica Roth’s book series in early 2013. I grabbed the next book, Insurgent, and that one was exciting and interesting as well. But when the third book, Allegiant, came out, it just didn’t do much for me. At that point, the movies had started. Divergent was good. Insurgent was better, in some ways. And this weekend, I went to see Allegiant – and since I hadn’t liked the book very much, I was hoping that the rumored plot changes from book to film would redeem it.
They didn’t. Unfortunately, this installment is by far the weakest of the series to date. Following recent trends, Lionsgate Films has divided the final book into two films (the final film will be called Ascendant, due to debut in June 2017), and as lightweight as this current piece was, it could have carried the story’s finale easily without the split.
Allegiant took a talented and exciting cast, and made them wooden and uninteresting. That was quite a feat! Ansel Elgort, as Tris’ brother Caleb, didn’t have far to go, but it took a huge leap to turn Theo James, as the hunky Four, into a robotic run-and-gun droid. And Shailene Woodley’s Tris went from powerful, revolutionary and heroic to subservient and unquestioning, with huge eyes in an oddly out of place 1990s corporate white dress and heels. Where’d they pull that up from? And Miles Teller’s born-to-betray Peter became merely comic relief.
The story remained basically the same from book to film, although many details were changed. After rescuing Tris, killing the powerful Jeanine and releasing the long-forgotten information about the Divergents, the survivors escape outside the Wall to find out what awaits them, per the message they revealed. They find a group holed up at O’Hare Airport, searching for a way to repair genetic damage done years ago, which caused the formation of the Chicago colony as an experiment (and frankly, the term “genetically pure” grated every time I heard it, with its Nazi overtones). They learn the truth of the experiment and its consequences for the guinea pigs, and go back to put down the rising war coming between Four’s mother Evelyn’s group (Naomi Watts), and Joanna’s (Octavia Spencer) former Amity group, who wants to live in peace. Their motivations for the coming war were completely glossed over in the film – that they were united in condemning those who stood with Jeanine and tortured and killed other citizens, that was clear. But the reasons for these two groups to feud, one made up mostly of those kicked out of factions (under Evelyn) and those who grew up in the faction system, was unexplored and shortchanged.
Jeff Daniels, as the leader of the O’Hare outpost, didn’t interest me at all either. And that’s too bad, because I generally really like him (well, I think he may have had temporary insanity at one point, which resulted in Dumb and Dumberer), but his character wasn’t compelling or convincing. I have no clue how he talked Tris into behaving (and dressing) like a Stepford wife.
Many of the special effects were odd. The “plasma bubbles” that the outpost’s force puts our heroes into was very strange. They attach to the planes? And the people in them have to sort of crouch, and they don’t get blown away? Weird. Little hockey-puck drones, used to relay information back to the user, and how they’re controlled, were kind of neat, but everything else felt low-budget and low-imagination. Compared to the fantastic visual effects used in Insurgent, one has to wonder if director Robert Schwentke (who did both films) was involved in another project at the same time and didn’t pay enough attention to this one.
I may have to go back and reread Allegiant. The ending of this film left me cold. There was not enough of a cliffhanger, overt threat, or plot twist to make a compelling reason to anticipate a fourth film. And the 15-month wait may be enough to kill any residual interest, even among hard-core fans, now that they’ve seen how the book was twisted into this movie. It’s too bad – the premise of the story was exciting, and many of the actors were well cast. But it’s hard to do much with a lackluster adaptation. The weekend’s box office numbers show that word spread quickly and kept viewers away – this film’s opening weekend numbers were far below the previous installments. That in itself may kill the fourth film – or maybe they’ll learn from this and give us a better outing for the last one.
https://youtu.be/MJsDuGRiLqM
The Divergent Series Film Website
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