Insurgent Review

*THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Okay, before I start I should do a little disclaimer because, I did not like Divergent at all when I first watched it. I disliked it so much it kind of made me mad, to me it was a easy 1/10. But I do think it was more of an experience problem than the movie itself; Since before I watched Divergent, I watched Captain America: Winter Soldier for the first time, and right after I finished Divergent I went to the cinema and watched Guardians Of The Galaxy. Those are two extremely good movies, they are both to me a 10/10, and that might have contributed to the fact that I disliked Divergent so much. After a while Divergent was on TV again, and I decided to watch it, so I realised I had been a bit harsh on the film. It is not the greatest film of all time, but it is also not the trash I remembered it being. It is average but it does deserve at least a 5.7/10.

So in order to have a better experience with this sequel than I did with the first one, I decided to go to the midnight premiere for Insurgent. I was actually slightly nervous, ‘cause you know how those premiere things can get crazy and you actually have a good chance of not hearing anything whatsoever, since every single fan will be screaming every time anything (or nothing) happens. When I went to the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 premiere I found a full packed cinema and a lot of screams, and same goes for the New Moon premiere (yes, I went to the New Moon midnight premiere, don’t ask...). I don’t know if things changed that much since my last one, but it was so calm. No one screamed, no one cheered, nothing (not to mention there was probably less than 40 people there). It was kind of a bummer, if I am honest. But on the brighter side, it was great to watch the film with no inconveniences.

(x)

Insurgent is the continuing adventures of Tris, in a dystopian futuristic world, in which everyone is divided into factions. After the events that occurred in the previous film, Divergent, she and friends are on the run from the evil Jeanine whilst trying to find a way to bring the faction system down, even if that means killing some people on the way.

Okay, I did not enjoy this movie, but as usual let’s start on the brighter side and talk about the good things on this film.

Visuals are great, I loved all of the dream sequences scenes, and even though you can see the CGI during a few moments, they’re really good. As usual the acting was great. This franchise is very lucky since they probably have the best cast assemble out off all of the others teen dystopian future book adaptations.

I fairly enjoy the first 15 minutes or so and probably the last 25 minutes. I found it compelling, funny, and enjoyable. I adored seeing them in Amity, seeing their interactions with each other and the people there. I loved the chasing until the train scene and found it very entertaining. This film had me going until Tris’s brother, Caleb decides to leave their journey to follow his own path or something. And after that the movie just drags for a really long time. And once it’s back on track, only got about 30 minutes left. I very much enjoyed it again, from the moment when Tris turns herself in, then we finally get to see all of the dream sequences and her interaction with Jeanine, and both her brother and Peter.

(x)

Over all this film really suffers with its bad directing and poor writing, not to mention quite a long list of plot holes. Even on the beginning that I did like, there were major plot holes, like for example: Four being on a open field with a gun firing against probably 15 people or more and hitting around three people, whilst those people didn’t seem to be able to hit him at all. He is on a open field, not very far from those trained people and yet none of them hit him not even once.

Then we have the train scene, that to me was the most absurd thing that happened throughout this entire film. Four, Tris and Caleb are able to escape Eric and his army of trained man by getting into a train, but they discover that the train is filled with factionless people. They then get into a fight, in which Four, Caleb and Tris kill at least four people. And after saving Tris’s life Four realises they are surrounded by factionlesses and they can’t anything about it, so he says his real name and the fantionless guy is like “Oh, we were looking for you!”. And that scene happened I put my arms in the air and said “what?” even the people behind me laughed and agreed with me. They literally killed four (or maybe more) people because Four didn’t want to say his real name? It just kind of put me off.

I got put off again, right after Caleb leaves them and they go into Candor in order to meet their friends fellow Dauntless, who happen to be also hiding from Jeanine. The problem is, as soon as they arrive in Candor they find all of their friends sitting in the front of the building. Despite the fact that they were hiding from Jeanine, and she couldn’t seem to find them.

After that scene the film starts dragging, and I actually checked my watch a couple of times. We get now multiple scenes of Tris whining and being annoying, until she makes a decision. The problem with this is it’s the almost exact same main character plot they have in Catching Fire, and it was better accomplished in that film.

The ending felt very Maze Runner-ish to me, but that’s because it’s very similar. On both films at the end of the day, everything they went through was just an experiment. Another huge problem for me was that I know we’re going to have two more films in this franchise, yet the way this films ends it doesn’t seem to need any sequel. I was very happy with this ending. It felt like a complete piece. 

(x)

Shailene Woodley is a very talented actress, there is no denial in that. She certainly pulls off a very consistent performance throughout the film, apart from one scene in particular in which she overacts just a bit. Yet, I don’t believe that’s her fault, It seems to be more of the way she was directed. When it comes to Theo James, I don’t particularly think he’s a good actor, to me he’s nothing but average. As concerning their romance, I still don’t buy it. They have almost zero chemistry and their characters love for each other barely make any sense, the main reason they love each other is because the script says so.

Ansel Elgort has good performance with what his given, which isn’t much, but in some scenes, like when they’re running away in the begging he has an great performance. Jai Courtney is also impressively good, he’s not the best actor, but he’s quite good as villain, I really enjoyed him in this film. A bummer for me though was Zoe Kravitz, I adore her and don’t blame her at all, she was wasn’t given the right lines or story. Her character seemed kind of annoying in this, even though she’s barely on it.

(x)

On the other hand, Miles Teller’s performance was extremely on point. He was consistent, funny and even a asshole when required. He is one of the highlights of this film. Almost every single time he’s on screen I was happy. This boy is going far, he is in a franchise like ‘Divergent’, has been in great films like ‘Whiplash’ and ‘The Spectacular Now’, and is going to be in the new superhero film ‘Fantastic 4’. He is great as Peter, and he is 100% the best character, even though he isn’t developed in any way. I wish they’d given Peter  more screen time, I’d very much love to see that.

When it comes to the older actors, they barely have any screen time. They are all good actors, but they are just not developed in any way. Kate Winslet is a good actress, but she’s not utilised in here. She just walks in and out of rooms interacting with some sort of technology and explaining her plans to people. We also had Octavia Spencer in this, and she’s great, but she only has like two or three scenes in the entire film. And last but not least we have Naomi Watts, who plays the factionless’s leader and Four’s mother, and that’s really my main problem with her character. I just didn’t buy that she’s his mum. They look about the same age.

Even running just under 2 hours this film still felt too long for me. They waste a lot of time in a badly executed romance and poor storyline, instead of doing at least a little bit of character development. Whilst the visuals and acting are great the film fails to deliver a good storyline and interesting characters. This sequel is certainly worst then the first one and fails to set up for the third and fourth films.

4.3/10