Insurgent Review

Roughly a month ago I finally caught up with last years new hit young adult dystopian thriller Divergent, and my review can be summed up mostly by my final sentence:

"Divergent is a lukewarm bowl of bland but passable punch, and Theo James is the turd floating in it."

Despite this, I expressed some optimism for the franchise going forward because perhaps the first film was merely serving as a decent but completely forgettable way to kick start something exciting and interesting. Perhaps the talents of Shailene Woodley would be given far more room to shine because in order for these types of stories to work, the material needs a star (Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, for example). Perhaps the character Four, played lifelessly by Theo James, would get hit by a train during the first half of the film.

Addressing these in order: no, no, and close call but no again.

I would be lying if I said Insurgent was a complete failure. Thanks to some really wonderfully realized set pieces and intense action sequences, it delivers the occasional thrill but unfortunately those moments are few and far between, and in a strange way they almost do a disservice to the material. 

What I mean is, in Divergent very little occurred to actually get me enthused, so the entire experience played like one giant blob of mediocre and my expectations for more never rose above a simmer. Insurgent utilizes some fantastic visual effects and decently filmed action and because of this I perked up a bit, thinking maybe, just maybe it was about to go in some compelling directions and get me intrigued for the next entry in the franchise. Not only does it not deliver in this regard, the small amount of good makes the bad stick out like a sore thumb.

Bad acting from some, especially the previously mentioned Theo James. Seriously, I am buying zero of what this dude is selling. The emotions of his character might resonate more if it were played by a tuna fish sandwich. I look into this handsome fellow's eyes and search for any sign of a soul but I come up empty.

Bad casting of the very talented Miles Teller in a role that doesn't utilize any of it, and I swear I have seen Naomi Watts be really good in stuff in the past. Just last year she fit in with the brilliant ensemble of Birdman just fine, a film that went on to win Best Picture, but in Insurgent it felt like she was reading off of a really poorly written cue card. She read lines as if the director was yelling cut when she actually showed some emotion, and then he would inform her of his demands to deliver these words as if she had died a week ago.

Insurgent actually has a few scenes in it that I would describe as being "cool", which is something I couldn't say about Divergent. Despite this, I am giving the second film of the trilogy (or is the last film split into two? Who the hell can keep track of these things anymore?) a lower grade than the first, because outside of those moments of cool is a pile of terribly paced, meandering nonsense.

2/5 

Divergent Review

It is safe to say that I am a fan of Shailene Woodley, which is a pretty shocking realization to come to considering I am still trying to cleanse my soul of that abomination of a television series she starred on before her breakthrough role in The Descendants. After seeing her work in that film, The Spectacular Now, the otherwise terrible White Bird in a Blizzard and The Fault in Our Stars, it is pretty clear that Woodley is a special talent that needed the right material to show she could shine. Unfortunately, as hard as she may have tried in the hit young adult dystopian thriller Divergent, nothing was going to be able to elevate this film above mediocrity. 

Regardless of what reviews and others had said about Divergent, I still needed to give it a fair shake and find out if there was any meat on it's bones. After all, I had doubts about the quality of The Hunger Games franchise prior to the release of the first film, and I have since fallen in love with the story of Katniss and the revolution. Divergent is neither a good nor a bad movie, it is painfully mediocre. A major problem I have hear is the casting from the top down, as despite my admiration for Woodley in general, something wasn't right about her performance here. During quiet moments of reflection or her portrayal of emotional devastation, she fits perfectly into the role and her presence on screen feels right. However, when asked to be an angry, bad ass action star, it just doesn't work, which was correctly predicted by my wife after she read the book. 

What really killed me was seeing the extraordinary talents of people like Kate Winslet and Miles Teller totally wasted in roles far beneath their capabilities. Anyone could have played these boring, lifeless characters reciting material that, to put it kindly, was limited at best, so seeing faces that have previously proved their ability to steal a scene add absolutely nothing here was a hard pill to swallow. 

The story of Divergent takes place in a futuristic Chicago after society has become as simplistic and uninspired as the film itself. When a person begins their adulthood, they must choose a faction to enter into and commit to it for life, no questions asked. However, sometimes a person either doesn't fit into just one or they refuse to accept such a narrow, limited fate, and they do not comply by what is expected of them. Those people are known as Divergent, which is exactly what happens to our heroine of the saga, Tris Prior, played by the aforementioned Shailene Woodley.

I was never troubled by the quality of this movie, but I also was never really compelled by it either. Divergent just sort of is, it exists and it did an adequate job of entertaining me for a while. I will gladly check out the sequel and see if the experience is enhanced in any way, as perhaps the best is still yet to come for this franchise. A step in the right direction would be to limit, or hell, even kill off the character of Four, played (terribly) by the hunky cardboard cutout Theo James. I'm not familiar with this actor previously, so I can't speak to the overall trajectory of his career, but if this is his A game that is unfortunate. Divergent is a lukewarm bowl of bland but passable punch, and Theo James is the turd floating in it.

2.5/5