ALLEGIANT Review

I tried. I really did. I even read the first two books, but I knew it was a bad sign when it took me two tries to make it through the second novel in author Veronica Roth's dystopian young adult series, Insurgent. I didn't even bother to try and read the third and final novel in the series if that tells you anything about how much I cared about what happened to these characters and their overly complicated world. If nothing else, I thought not reading the source material might make the third film (which of course is part one of a two part finale that splits the final book in half-the second of which doesn't arrive until next summer) more intriguing given I didn't know exactly where the story would be heading, but as with the two previous films while there is always stuff happening, the story doesn't necessarily move forward. This is the problem with the series as a whole never mind the individual films. There is even the idea there is too much going on as each character's dialogue is plagued by large portions consisting of pure exposition, but if we don't know what we need to know about this world by the third film there's simply too much and Allegiant suffers greatly from too much talking and not enough actually happening. The film seems a pristine example of taking two steps forward only to take three steps back. At the very least, we expect story tropes of the YA genre to be pushing the audience forward to some type of inevitable showdown between the exceptional protagonist and the jaded authority figure who doesn't believe in them, but the Divergent Series has repeated this so many times at this point that there is no tension left and worse, we can see where things are going given they've been telegraphed a handful of scenes prior. I'm sure Roth had interesting ideas she wanted to explore going into writing this franchise and some even start to peek through in certain moments here, but it seems like the filmmakers and crew are as tired of making these movies as audiences are of watching them and thus the cohesiveness of the actual story is the last thing on their minds making Allegiant go straight to the back of ours as soon as the credits begin to roll.

New Trailer for THE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT

As the Hunger Games franchise comes to a close next week it also feels, culturally, like the age of the YA literary adaptation is coming to an end as well. So, where does that leave the lesser adaptations of such young adult fare like Divergent and the Maze Runner films? With only steady to dwindling box office returns on both second installments it's hard to know if there is really any excitement left for these franchises. The produces of the Divergent films, however, seem to think so as not only do they have another chapter for audiences this year, but they're extending Veronica Roth's final book in the series into the two-parter that will be categorized under Allegiant and Ascendant. Why they're doing this, I have no idea. Insurgent, the second film in the series, made almost $300 million worldwide on a budget of $110m, while Divergent, the initial chapter, did about $9m less, but was also $25m cheaper. While they may not be losing money, they certainly don't seem to be making much on these things. Why not finish off the trilogy with one more film and cut your losses (I can't imagine Allegiant doing any better given the horrible word of mouth around Insurgent)? I guess we'll find out what the master plan is when the film arrives and expands the world of Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) past it's Chicago borders this spring. The Divergent Series: Allegiant also stars Ansel Elgort, Jeff Daniels, Octavia Spencer, Miles Teller, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer, Daniel Dae Kim, Naomi Watts and opens March 18, 2016.

DIVERGENT Review

If Divergent is anything it is competent. Everything about it screams ambition, what it wants to be and the actual product itself shows it has the ability and the right amount of reverence for the source material to be successful in conveying the spirit of Veronica Roth's novel to the screen. The drawback is that while it is indeed capable and is able to make a suitable enough film for fans of the novel to more or less enjoy and pick apart, nothing about the execution of bringing this story to life screams exceptional or even, for lack of a better term in this case, divergent. I finished the first book in Roth's trilogy a few months back and have since moved on to the next one, but while I was suspicious of this new dystopian franchise with a young female heroine for the lead I was eventually able to look past the similarities between it and The Hunger Games and at least understand the merit people were finding in these books. It might be too much (or too early for me as I'm in the middle of Insurgent) to say that Roth's series is the better written of the two from a creative standpoint, but it is already clear that Suzanne Collins series lends itself well to the cinematic world even if people were weary of it at first given the titular event included the slaughtering of children. I, personally, thought Divergent would be the easier story to tell onscreen, but it becomes obvious within the first hour or so of the film that this may not be so as things and events begin to collapse in on themselves and it is only with the promise of another chapter and the idea that these plot strands with less attention paid to them this time around may rise to become more relevant in the future. It is an odd feeling because as the film unfolded and I was referencing the book in my head wondering when or if they would include certain scenes it became apparent the writers and the filmmakers weren't quite sure how to structure things. The film plays out well enough and we understand the point of why everything is happening, but we don't necessarily feel the tension or the growing fear that should be mounting in our protagonist until it is too late and we feel the film has gone on for too long without ever feeling whole.