2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for intense action and violence, mild sensuality and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang
They’re all blending together.
Dystopian, post-apocalyptic
societies cobbled together after some undefined catastrophe, and ruled by corrupt
aristocratic elites; resourceful teenage rebels, blessed with special talents,
determined to destroy the system, and forced to undergo cruel, violent and
flat-out weird mental and/or physical trials; lots of running, jumping,
shooting, and killing; the frequently shed tears.
I no longer know whether I’m watching
the next installment of The Hunger Games,
the Divergent series, or The Maze Runner.
And, frankly, I’m losing
interest. Been there, endured that.
Sadly, the just-released Insurgent bears the brunt of my apathy,
thanks primarily to the clumsy, tin-eared script credited to Brian Duffield,
Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback. They’re a poor substitute for Evan Daugherty
and Vanessa Taylor, who did a far superior adaptation of last year’s Divergent, the first film in Veronica
Roth’s trilogy.
This new film resembles Roth’s
second novel in little more than name; great, gaping chunks of exposition and numerous
supporting characters have been lost or ignored, and significant plot points
have been changed beyond recognition. Not that the narrative has much of a plot
to begin with; this film is little more than running and fighting, whether in
environments real or imagined.
Indeed, the latter crop up so
frequently that it becomes difficult to distinguish whether Tris (Shailene
Woodley) is in genuine danger, or being victimized by one of the evil “SIM”
(simulation) environments, or whether we’re once again being suckered by
another of her own nightmares.
The latter are particularly
irritating cheats, and director Robert Schwentke opens with just such a sucker
play: a rather blatant indication of the highly disappointing film to follow.
All of which is a shame, because
Woodley gave us a particularly plucky, intelligent and engaging Tris in the
first film: a heroine worthy of our respect and admiration, as she rallied when
confronted by the truth of the world in which she lived. She’s much less admirable
in this second outing, reduced to an insecure, reckless and weepy shadow of her
former self.
I understand that this is driven,
to a great degree, by the subtext in Roth’s second novel: Tris has become
plagued by self-doubt, worried that she’s a “curse” to anybody foolish enough
to befriend or love her. The crux of her evolution, in this saga’s second
chapter, is the necessity of overcoming such anxiety: rejecting this doom-laden
view of herself.
Unfortunately, Schwentke
overplays the “despair” card; Woodley’s Tris cries too often, and our
impatience soon overwhelms all else ... much the way we groaned over how
Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss became so uncharacteristically impotent, in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
That just felt contrived and wrong,
and the same is true here.
So, to recap:
Tris lives in a futuristic, walled-in
and rubble-strewn Chicago, where humanity’s survivors have been divided into
five “factions,” based on abilities, temperaments and (to a minor degree)
personal preference. Members of the Abnegation faction are selfless, Amity are
peaceful, Candor are honest, Dauntless are brave, and Erudite are intelligent.
Children are given government-sponsored aptitude tests upon reaching maturity,
and assigned to their (theoretical) ideal faction.
But some individuals, possessing
attributes of multiple factions and therefore more intelligent and perceptive
than the norm, are dubbed “divergent” and regarded as dangerous. Tris is one
such aberration; the first film depicted this discovery, and her struggle to
find a place among her own kind, and climaxed with a key victory against
Jeanine (Kate Winslet), the power-hungry leader of the Erudite faction.
Being perceived as the most
intelligent, the Erudites have long ruled this oddly splintered society. And
you know what they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely...
As this film opens, Tris is on
the run from an enraged Jeanine and her loyal Dauntless troops. Our heroine has
taken shelter in the Amity settlement, along with her trusted companions: her
lover, Tobias “Four” Eaton (Theo James); her brother, Caleb (Ansel Elgort); and
the unpredictable Peter (Miles Teller), whose allegiance seems shaky, at best.
Elsewhere, Jeanine has obtained a
mysterious, five-sided box that she’s convinced contains a message with the key
to the future. But the box can be unlocked only by a divergent possessing
qualities of all five factions ... and it isn’t hard to guess who that’ll be.
Cue an endless series of chases
and battles, during which Tris and Ford display an impressive ability to dodge
high-tech weapon fire. Enter some new sidebar characters: Johanna (Octavia
Spencer), in charge of the Amity clan; Jack Kang (Daniel Dae Kim), head of the
Candor clan; Evelyn (Naomi Watts), leader of a “factionless” enclave that
shares Tris’ desire to eliminate Jeanine; and Edgar (Jonny Weston), Evelyn’s
second-in-command.
And, whoops: Evelyn also turns out to be Four’s mother, until now
believed dead. As might have been said in an iconic 1960s TV series, Holy
suspicious coincidence, Batman!
Returning familiar faces include
Eric (Jai Courtney), the most vicious of the Dauntless pursuers; Max (Mekhi
Phifer), a somewhat more sympathetic Dauntless soldier; Tori (Maggie Q), Tris’
former mentor; and Christina (Zoë Kravitz), Tris’ best friend.
I think back to the rich rapport
that Woodley and Elgort shared in the big-screen adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, and I despair; Insurgent doesn’t give us a single
relationship with anything approaching that verisimilitude.
All the actors do their best with
the frequently ludicrous dialogue. Schwentke apparently deems credibility less
important than visual effects supervisor James Madigan’s impressive CGI sequences,
which bring Tris’ nightmares and SIM landscapes to life. And that rapidly
becomes a problem, because we can watch Chicago’s buildings and environs get
shattered only so many times, while simultaneously wondering, “But wait; what
about ... and this ... and that...”
As one example:
Roughly midway through the
action, Tris and scores of new Candor allies get shot with nasty, mind-controlling
“pellets” that bury beneath the skin and wrap their “tails” around vital
organs. We’re told that attempting to remove these gadgets will kill the human
host. Jeanine now has the ability to force innocents to (for example) jump to
their deaths: a threat she employs to force Tris’ hand.
Well, let’s see ... given
Jeanine’s ruthless ambitions, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to dispense
with idle threats, and simply order all
the afflicted victims to commit suicide? That’d reduce the rebel ranks pretty
quickly, donchathink?
Worse yet, and not much later
along, we’re suddenly told that somebody “figured out a way” to safely remove
those nasty pellets. Do tell? An obviously important detail like that, and it
occurs off-camera, practically as an afterthought?
The whole film lurches
gracelessly like that, along with all sorts of shifting alliances. Somebody
who’s good now turns bad later, and vice-versa ... seemingly for no reason.
Caleb endures the worst of such caprice, and poor Elgort can’t begin to make
this kid look or sound convincing.
And that’s what it comes down to.
Everything about this script feels rushed and made up as it goes along, which
definitely isn’t the case with Roth’s source novel. She must be quite
frustrated, and I’m sure her fans will be; this Insurgent is an irritating shadow of its literary self.
Fantasy stories absolutely must establish rigorously comprehensive
rules, and then stick to them. This
film does neither.
As has become typical Hollywood
custom, in the wake of the Harry Potter series, Roth’s third book will hit the
big screen in two installments: Allegiant
Part 1 and Part 2, in
(respectively) 2016 and ’17. Schwentke appears to be returning for the first
half, at least, which I deem unfortunate. Unless the script falls into better
hands, it’ll be difficult to care.
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