Insurgent – Movie Review
Insurgent – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 20 Mar 2015
Insurgent is the second film in the Divergent series, following 2014’s Divergent. The movies are adapted from young adult novels and star Shailene Woodley as Tris, Theo James as Four and Kate Winslet as Jeanine.
Insurgent picks up some time after the events of the first movie, with the faction system in chaos and Tris and her friends hiding out in the Amity faction. Determined to show Jeanine as the evil force that she is, Tris sets out create an army to find and kill her. Jeanine is meanwhile looking for a divergent who can open an artifact from the mysterious founders that she believes will show that the divergents are to be stopped at all costs.
The first two acts of the movie suffer from some lackluster plotting that in some cases make no sense. Important characters suddenly decide to abandon Tris, and she lets them go without a fight – or really even much of a goodbye. Much is redeemed by a solid third act with a couple of twists and exciting developments. This seems to work at making sure you leave the theater with a higher opinion of the movie than it may deserve, and a final exciting development punctuates this feeling. On further inspection, the very last scene seems to undermine things for the third film.
Shailene Woodley is excellent in this installment as a guilt-ridden and rage-filled Tris who cannot forgive herself for the pain she has brought upon those she loves. The other performances are perfectly fine, there’s just little in the way of character for them to work with outside of a single dimension.
I was pleasantly surprised by Divergent as I didn’t have much expectation for it. Insurgent I found mostly treading water until the last half hour, which was as good or better than the first movie. I’m disappointed that the third book will be split into two movies (which really hurt the third Hunger Games movie), but fans of the first film will probably find enough to like here to keep engaged with the series.
Bess, Cal, Jeremiah and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car:
