Insurgent
Year: 2015
Director: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Theo James, Miles Teller, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet & Shailene Woodley
Runtime: 119 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 07/12/23
Director: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Theo James, Miles Teller, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet & Shailene Woodley
Runtime: 119 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 07/12/23
Divergent failed to set the world on fire when it released in 2014. It performed well at the box office, but critics and audiences were hardly wowed by the newest kid on the YA block. But Lionsgate had always planned to adapt all of Veronica Roth’s books, and so a sequel was already well underway by the time Divergent hit theatres. It might be this lack of foresight then that meant that Insurgent fell at many of the same hurdles as its predecessor, and whilst general consensus seems mixed as to whether it’s better or worse than Divergent, it can be said with the utmost assurance that Insurgent was the last gasp not only of a dying series, but an entire genre of Hollywood films.
Five days after their escape from Chicago, Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Peter (Miles Teller), and Caleb (Ansel Elgort) have taken refuge at an Amity farming community. Meanwhile inside the walled city they once called home, Erudite under leadership of Jeanine (Kate Winslet) has conducted a smear campaign against the Divergent to cover for her attempted genocide of Abnegation using mind controlled Dauntless soldiers.
When they encounter Four’s mother, Evelyn (Naomi Watts), a clan leader of Factionless, they are offered the opportunity to have the Factionless ally with them in a fight against Jeanine. But they need to make the factions of Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity, and Candor aware of Erudite’s betrayal. The Divergent choose to infiltrate the city and seek Candor to declare their truth, meanwhile Jeanine discovers an object which may help her destroy all Divergent.
One problem I had with Divergent was that the story became less interesting as it went along. The setup was good, but it failed to actually build momentum in the story until right at the end when it just sprinted towards the finish line and provided no resolution on anything. Insurgent meanwhile starts slow and does manage to build momentum pretty decently as the story progresses. It still doesn’t really provide any resolution on anything come the ending, but it does at least pace itself far better and continue to deliver new and interesting plot developments as it moves forward.
But the biggest issue I have with Divergent as a whole, and as a result this applies to Insurgent, is the world doesn’t really make any logical sense. The whole system is built around people being divided into factions based on personality traits, but the Divergent have multiple of these traits and so don’t fit neatly into any one faction and are perceived to be a threat because of their ability to think for themselves. The problem, which is more evident than ever with Insurgent, is that a number of characters that aren’t Divergent are able to think like this, Jeanine being one of them. It also means that it calls into question the division that has appeared in the Dauntless faction, those that ally with Jeanine and those that ally with the Divergent. If they are all supposed to share one personality trait and one line of thought, then they wouldn’t split into two opposing sides.
Five days after their escape from Chicago, Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Peter (Miles Teller), and Caleb (Ansel Elgort) have taken refuge at an Amity farming community. Meanwhile inside the walled city they once called home, Erudite under leadership of Jeanine (Kate Winslet) has conducted a smear campaign against the Divergent to cover for her attempted genocide of Abnegation using mind controlled Dauntless soldiers.
When they encounter Four’s mother, Evelyn (Naomi Watts), a clan leader of Factionless, they are offered the opportunity to have the Factionless ally with them in a fight against Jeanine. But they need to make the factions of Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity, and Candor aware of Erudite’s betrayal. The Divergent choose to infiltrate the city and seek Candor to declare their truth, meanwhile Jeanine discovers an object which may help her destroy all Divergent.
One problem I had with Divergent was that the story became less interesting as it went along. The setup was good, but it failed to actually build momentum in the story until right at the end when it just sprinted towards the finish line and provided no resolution on anything. Insurgent meanwhile starts slow and does manage to build momentum pretty decently as the story progresses. It still doesn’t really provide any resolution on anything come the ending, but it does at least pace itself far better and continue to deliver new and interesting plot developments as it moves forward.
But the biggest issue I have with Divergent as a whole, and as a result this applies to Insurgent, is the world doesn’t really make any logical sense. The whole system is built around people being divided into factions based on personality traits, but the Divergent have multiple of these traits and so don’t fit neatly into any one faction and are perceived to be a threat because of their ability to think for themselves. The problem, which is more evident than ever with Insurgent, is that a number of characters that aren’t Divergent are able to think like this, Jeanine being one of them. It also means that it calls into question the division that has appeared in the Dauntless faction, those that ally with Jeanine and those that ally with the Divergent. If they are all supposed to share one personality trait and one line of thought, then they wouldn’t split into two opposing sides.
The third act gets a little messy, but I have to say I was largely on board with it. The whole thing revolves around Tris entering this VR style simulation to overcome challenges designed for each of the factions. If she can pass all of them then she can unlock this box that Jeanine thinks will destroy the Divergent, if not then she dies. The horrendous over-use of low budget CGI kind of ruins the whole thing, but as a concept I like it. I do feel that it’s a cop out that’s she’s able to take a break from it and go back once she’s regained her strength, and that following a failure that seemingly kills her she actually just gets another go. It’s inconsistent, and because the rest of the film isn’t as strong as other YA material out there it bugs me a bit more than most plot conveniences. But on the whole the third act is generally good and the setup for the third film is actually pretty exciting.
Woodley once again delivers a strong performance whilst the vast majority of the supporting cast struggle with the awkward dialogue and the need to be running everywhere all the time. Watts was arguably the standout for me and it’s a shame that she’s not in the film more. I also would have liked to have seen more from Octavia Spencer who plays the leader of the Amity group Tris and the other Divergent are taking shelter at. She’s a great actress and she’s criminally underused here.
In general, Insurgent like its predecessor is just kind of dull. It’s not exactly bad, but its uninspired and I feel like that allows the problems to be so much more glaring as a result. I can’t be alone in that assessment either because the box office results for the film are only marginally more than the first film, despite a significantly higher budget which goes a long way to explaining why the third film bombed so hard.
Insurgent has a wide scope of material it wants to work with but never allows itself the time to actually deal with it, and when it fleetingly does it doesn’t really do it with any level of finesse or skill. It’s this very reason why the franchise faded into obscurity and never managed to gain the traction it arguably should have done.
Woodley once again delivers a strong performance whilst the vast majority of the supporting cast struggle with the awkward dialogue and the need to be running everywhere all the time. Watts was arguably the standout for me and it’s a shame that she’s not in the film more. I also would have liked to have seen more from Octavia Spencer who plays the leader of the Amity group Tris and the other Divergent are taking shelter at. She’s a great actress and she’s criminally underused here.
In general, Insurgent like its predecessor is just kind of dull. It’s not exactly bad, but its uninspired and I feel like that allows the problems to be so much more glaring as a result. I can’t be alone in that assessment either because the box office results for the film are only marginally more than the first film, despite a significantly higher budget which goes a long way to explaining why the third film bombed so hard.
Insurgent has a wide scope of material it wants to work with but never allows itself the time to actually deal with it, and when it fleetingly does it doesn’t really do it with any level of finesse or skill. It’s this very reason why the franchise faded into obscurity and never managed to gain the traction it arguably should have done.