Movie Reviews

I don’t know about you, but I kinda liked Divergent. I’m pretty sure I’m not the target audience for a movie where a teen girl gets to play the hero, but hey… it was fun. George Orwell meets The Hunger Games if you will.

In short, in the future the world is a mess and people live in a ruined Chicago where they are divided in five factional camps, determined by aptitude and personality type. There’s Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. Some are Factionless. And the series’ hero, Tris (Shailene Woodley) is a rare multi-factional called a Divergent. And nobody likes a Divergent, especially not the evil Erudite that is Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet). Because Divergents form a threat to their way of life.

Insurgent, the second movie in the series picks up where the first one left off, right after her mother got killed and her entire faction nearly got wiped out. Unfortunately it doesn’t take long before the movie derails and goes a little overboard. There’s some kinda story about how evil Jeanine feels that an insurgence is on the way, which is why she needs some kind of mystery box to restore order. But only the strongest of Divergents has a chance to unlock said box. Take a wild guess who that is? Ding ding, it’s Tris. Of course, she’s not simply going to surrender and so we go from fight sequence to fight sequence, without being offered a whole lot more. And when the movie does slow down for a moment, it’s for scenes that come with the kind of emotional depth (or lack thereof) that make them very well suited for a bathroom break. On the other hand, everything looks good and the movie does move along at a swift pace and then leaves us with a cliffhanger.

Insurgent works on a basic level, meaning that it will hold your attention, and Woodley is a good enough actress to make you want to root for her just enough to make you want to watch the next installment as well.