MOVIESOF Sci-fi flight to freedom

THE WEEK

šš THE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT. Directed by: Robert Schwentke. Starring: Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, Naomi Watts, Theo James, Xander Berkeley, Miles Teller, Maggie Q, Jeff Daniels.

Showing at: Boardwalk, Walmer Park, Baywest, Hemingways. “JEANINE is dead,” purrs Allegiant’s opening voiceover. It’s nice to see a young-adult franchise on such breezy first-name terms with its super-villains, and in the otherwise tranquilisingly stale Divergent Series, it’s one of a very few authentically weird details to stick out.

So, after having seen off the chicly-tailored would-be dictator Jeanine (Kate Winslet) in last year’s Insurgent, now Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) must lock horns with the fearsome Evelyn, and later, the even more terrifying David.

Tris and her hot young freedom-fighting squad flee the ruins of future Chicago and clamber over its ramparts to reach the acid-charred wasteland beyond.

The escape itself is energetic and just loopy enough – imagine the wall-climbing scenes from the 1960s Batman TV series seasoned with a little post-apocalyptic vehicular pursuit by a goon squad dispatched by Evelyn (Naomi Watts). – The Telegraph