Divergent sequel craves gravitas
INSURGENT
Director: Robert Schwentke Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Kate Winslet Duration: 119 minutes
Like the citizens of The Hunger Games, who often borrow their names from classical antiquity, the Divergent series of films uses ancient Latin roots to coin the five factions of its futuristic dystopia. Thus we have Amity, Abnegation, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. Much more impressive than Friendlies, Selflessies, Truthies, Bravies and Brainies.
But The Divergent Series: Insurgent, the middle chapter in the story of young rebel Tris Prior, desperately wants to be taken seriously. That may be why it feels the need to open with a bang and close with another, with a whole lot of lesser bangs in between.
The movie features an unusually large number of people being shot in the head, as well as some steamy sex scenes — though in both cases judicious cutaways preserve the PG rating.
Tris is played by Shailene Woodley, whom it’s unfair to compare to Jennifer Lawrence, so let’s do it anyway: She doesn’t have quite the same mix of gravitas and insouciance as Lawrence in The Hunger Games, but she looks a little more comfortable in this, her second turn in a post- apocalyptic world.
Divergent ended with Tris and her friends on the run from Jeanine ( Kate Winslet), an authoritarian dictator in spite of that genial first name.
As Insurgent opens they find sanctuary with the peace- loving people of Amity, one of the five factions in a walled Chicago that is, as far as anyone knows, the only habitable place left on Earth. ( So the Cubs finally have a shot at another World Series.)
The rest of the city comprises Dauntless ( brave, reckless and quite smug about it); Candor ( dedicated to truthfulness and equally smug); and Erudite ( given to learning, also smug). The only people who aren’t smug are Abnegation, because then they’d be Ironic. On the fringes are the Factionless, who don’t fit into any one group. And the Divergent, who fit into too many. That’s Tris.
Director Robert Schwentke ( The Time Traveler’s Wife, R. I. P. D.) has a lot of ground to cover in this chapter, so it’s no surprise he lets so many characters get killed off so cavalierly. Tris, her brother Caleb ( Ansel Elgort) and her boyfriend Four ( Theo James) have all escaped from Jeanine, no thanks to Peter ( Miles Teller), who turns coat in the opening scene.
Caleb goes off to join Erudite, while Tris and Prior try to figure out how to convince other citizens that Jeanine is evil and needs to be stopped. She has just got her hands on a safe that contains a message about the Divergents and how to stop them, but needs a Divergent to open it. Hence her hunt for Tris.
The result is much running from one faction to another, checking in with the Candor leader ( Daniel Dae Kim) and the den mother of the Factionless ( Naomi Watts). Tris has repeated nightmares about events from the last film she’d rather forget. I know how she feels.
Insurgent ends with a revelation that defies belief — unless you’ve read the young- adult novels by Veronica Roth. It’s sudden and silly and sets us up for Allegiant, the third and final book in the series, scheduled for theatres one year and then two years from now.
It’s become a Hollywood rule that the final book in any book to-film series must be split into two. Truthfully ( Candor), this is a smart ( Erudite) way to fearlessly ( Dauntless) maximize profits while making studios happy ( Amity). Though I for one could do with a little more Abnegation on that score.