The Divergent Series: Allegiant

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

Starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort

Directed by Robert Schwentke

The Story:
After the events of "Insurgent," the citizens of Chicago find themselves still stuck behind the wall, now being commanded by Evelyn (Naomi Watts), who wants to bring to justice those who oppressed them.  Meanwhile, Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) are planning on leaving the city to see what else lies beyond, and travels with Peter (Miles Teller), Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Christina (Zoe Kravitz) and Tori (Maggie Q) to scale the wall and see what lies on the other side.

They discover that the world has been pretty much destroyed, but then finds a cloaked city known as the Bureau of Genetic Warfare, led by the mysterious David (Jeff Daniels), who have been watching the citizens of Chicago for years.  They've split people into pure and damaged, and Tris is the only really pure person in the world.  Tris uses this in hopes of returning to Chicago to prevent a civil war between Evelyn and the new Allegiant faction started by Johanna (Octavia Spencer), and she feels she can trust David to help her, while Four doesn't trust him at all and sets out to save Chicago his own way.  They soon discover that no place is really safe, and the motto for this new dytopian world is "trust no one."

The Synopsis:
The "Divergent" series was a young adult book series written by Veronica Routh, and centers around a future destroyed by war, and features a heroine known as Tris, who is set to unite the world in peace and harmony.  Or something like that.  When the first film was released, it was met with critical and audience acclaim, and seemed to establish itself as another young adult novel-to-screen success story.  Then "Insurgent" was released, and reviews were mixed at best, and was met with less enthusiasm.  Perhaps this showed fatigue in the young adult end-of-the-world film series such as "Hunger Games" and "Maze Runner" also populating the marketplace, and maybe there wasn't room for another such movie.

With the planning of "Allegiant," the production company decided to do something that was done with other book-to-film series "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and "Hunger Games" - take the last book and stretch it into two movies.  Why do this?  Money, obviously.  If you've paid to sit through two of the previous films, you'd pay to sit through two more just to see how the series ends.  Right? Well, with "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part II," it showed that audiences wouldn't drink the Kool Aid anymore, and the film was one of the least successful in the franchise.  This didn't bode well for "Allegiant," and when it was finally released, it was critically and universally panned, and was considered a huge box office flop.  So much so that they decided that they wouldn't even release the final film in theaters, but rather would make it a made-for-TV movie with a possible television series spinoff afterward.  As of now it's not entirely set in stone, but if it does happen, it will more than likely be the proverbial nail in the coffin for the idea of splitting a book into two movies.  Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

So what was so wrong with "Allegiant" (besides the fact that it seems to be misspelled since the red squiggly line that just screams "CHECK MY SPELLING" keeps appearing under it)?  There's a long list that would take a very long while to explain, but I'll try my best.

First is the characterizations.  There are none.  The Tris, Four, Peter, Caleb, Christina, etc. people you met from "Divergent" are exactly the same now.  Tris is still the hero, yet she's restricted for most of this movie to hanging around with Jeff Daniels in an all-too-white living room.  Four is still the brooding silent type who wants to do right with everyone.  Peter is still a snarky, self-absorbed psychopath who should've been taken out like twenty times by now, since they should know he's only in it for himself.  Caleb is still as naive as ever (not knowing what an airport is was met by an annoying grunt by me).  Christina is still amazing and butt-kicking as ever.  There is no push to drive the characters any farther than they've already gone, and it appears that even the actors are becoming bored with the series, as even the chemistry between Tris and Four has all but been reduced to a burning ember. 

Next is the story.  Stretching one book into two movies leaves more room for interpretation, as well as really, really, really...really prolonging dialogue.  With the third movie we should already know everything there is about the characters and their setting, yet we're still reminded of the most simplest things we should've known before.  Plus you just know this new world they find is just as corrupt as their old one, and it seems that those who perished before these new worlds were created were the lucky ones.  David seems nice and wants to bring peace, but of course he's only out for power himself.  Evelyn - who dispatched Kate Winslet's evil leader in the last film - has turned into a Kate Winslet evil leader now, seeking blood and power over everything else.  Tris feels like she can trust David and goes against the love of her life, but apparently her female intuition is a bit askew.  All of this leads to the inevitable cliffhanger where we're supposed to fret and worry about our heroes, but instead we're just thankful the film was finally over.

Third is the pacing.  As I said earlier, when you split one book into two films, you leave a lot of room for interpretation.  In this case, the "interpretation" is several scenes of people wandering through a vast wasteland, huddled under an abandoned building while its raining blood for some reason, an elongated decontamination scene that's purely meant to show off Shailene Woodley and Theo James' bodies, and countless...vast...stares...by...main...characters.  You know the ones, where something big happens and the camera slowly zooms in on the characters' expressions?  That happens a lot here.  However, instead of adding intensity to the scene, they sort of look like they're screaming on the inside, "WHY AM I DOING THIS?"

Finally is the effects.  It seems that they rented a room from the Hilton and placed green screens on all the walls and decided to do all their filming there, since every scene has a terrible background that looks as cheap as something being done on a first-generation effects program.  The rest of the effects aren't good either, falling a bit short of your typical SyFy Original Movie, and it makes you wonder if you went back in time to the 90s for their special effects.  It is so laughable it really detracts from the stor...wait, there wasn't a story to begin with.

The Summary:
Must like the post-apocalyptic world it tried to produce, it's time to set this series to pasture and hope no one in the post-apocalyptic future sees this, because they'll wonder what idiots existed before they arrived.

The Score: C