Insurgent Review

     I did not see a whole lot of bad movies last year, and I reviewed only one of them; that movie was called "Divergent," and I hated it with a burning passion. It was the first movie in a planned trilogy and was based off the young adult novel of the same name. The book was made into a movie not because it was good or even super popular, but because companies are still trying to cash in on making movies out of best selling teen books in the hopes of having another financial hit like "Harry Potter" or "The Hunger Games." The problem was that those series were good but "Divergent" was terrible. The movie was nothing more than two hours and twenty minutes of grueling story telling that I did not care about. It was one of the most boring movies I had ever seen in theaters. And in my review I tore it apart, giving it the lowest score of any movie I reviewed in 2014; it even made it onto my list of the worst movies of the year. So you may be asking yourself, "Phillip, if you hated the first movie so much why would you see the sequel?" To be honest, I think it's because I just want to rip this one apart to; because to my own disbelief, "Insurgent" is just as bad as "Divergent."

     "Insurgent" place almost immediately after the events of "Divergent," and everything has gone to hell. The story revolves around a young woman named Tris and her boyfriend Four. In the society they live in, people are put into one of five factions depending on their personality. A small number of people are called divergent; they don't fit into any category and are wanted by the government because they believe that divergents will tear down the system. During the previous movie one of the factions made a power play to control the government, and their leader, Jeanine, has essentially gained control of the city and declared martial law. Tris and Four are in hiding, but are planning a way to get things back to a good place. After meeting some people known as factionless, they start to put a plan together to unseat those in power. While all this is going on, Jeanine has sent her people to find a box containing a message from the people who founded their city a few hundred years ago. The only way to open the box is to pass all 5 of the faction tests, which means only someone who is divergent can open it. Jeanine was hell-bent on killing all of the divergents, but now she needs one; she needs Tris. 

     Last year's "Divergent" was likely my least favorite movie from last year, and it looks like "Insurgent" is on its way to being my least favorite movie of this year. Let's go ahead and get the good aspects of this movie out of the way first. Shailene Woodley as Tris is probably the saving grace of this movie. She gives it her all, and does as good of a job as any actress would do in the role. One thing that this series has had going for it thus far is that the concept of the series is interesting; it gets into the areas of social structure and class warfare and is generally interesting. The overall idea had all the potential in the world, unfortunately the movies have not capitalized on the opportunities. There was one thing I loved about this movie, one huge improvement over its predecessor I really appreciated. And that is the fact that it is shorter. Sitting through "Divergent" was agonizing, partially because it was much longer than it needed to be. "Insurgent" though is quite a bit shorter, which made this movie slightly more pleasant to watch. That brings us to the end of what I enjoyed about his movie, now it's time to get to everything else. The overall concept of the story is interesting, that doesn't mean that the story itself is interesting. The plot of this movie is messy and convoluted. "Insurgent" is based off the book of the same name, and it feels like the author wrote the ending to the book first and then wrote the story leading up to the ending afterwards. The author knew how they wanted the book to end, so they just needed to create a story that fit the ending. But watching the movie, the plot feels like it was just thrown together. One problem with the story was the love interest aspects of it. There is no chemistry between the actors that play Tris and Four, you really don't care about their relationship and the whole thing comes off uninteresting. Like its predecessor, "Insurgent" tries really hard to be an action movie. The problem is that the action sequences in this movie just feel uninspired. They’re lazy and unimpressive, and pretty unbelievable at times. During one section Tris was being attacked by at least two dozen trained soldiers, and even though each one is firing at her from all angles not one manages to hit her. It feels a little cartoony, and for a movie that is trying to be serious it comes off as kind of dumb. The best thing this movie has going for it is Shailene Woodley's performance, every other actor in the movie though doesn't try half as hard as her. Most of the performances in the movie feel phoned in, no one but Woodley seems to even try. Kate Winslet, who is a great actress, plays Jeanine, and she looks like she doesn't even want to be there. No one is bad per say, but I feel that many of the stars could have done much better. It doesn't help that most of the dialog in the movie is pretty bad, and even cringe worthy at times. On more than one occasion I was rolling my eyes at what the characters were saying, especially during parts involving Tris and Four's relationship. Unlike its predecessor, "Insurgent" seemed to rely more on CGI. There were several dream sequences that looked like they took place entirely in front of a green screen. The problem is that the CGI was sub-par. In a world where movies like "Avatar," "Gravity," and "Life of Pi" have taken CGI to the next level, you can't have special effects that are anything less than fantastic. Like the acting, the CGI wasn't necessarily bad but it was lackluster. One of the problems I had with "Divergent" was the characters, they were generally uninteresting and many were unlikable. This movie suffers from the same problem, and the few new characters the movie adds bring nothing new to the series. TO be honest, you really don't care what happens to anyone. This movie does most everything wrong, but there is one thing that makes it truly unbearable. And that is that this movie is boring. Just like "Divergent," I was bored out of my mind watching this movie. I was almost constantly checking the time because I wanted to see how much more of it I would have to sit through. A movie can suffer through many problems and still be enjoyable, but when it becomes boring it is a lost cause. Going into this movie, I was really hoping it would be better than the last one. I don't like to hate movies, I understand a lot of time and money goes into them; but when a movie is bad I'll say it, and this movie is bad. Whether it is worse than "Divergent" is hard to say, but they're within shouting distance of each other. Even with Shailene Woodley at the helm giving it her all, there was nothing that could have saved this movie. I'll say the same thing about this movie that I said about "Divergent," "Insurgent" is just another bland movie meant to get teenagers in the seats. 

Pros: Shailene Woodley gives it her all, interesting concept, shorter than "Divergent."

Cons: Convoluted and messy plot, uninteresting love story, uninspired action sequences, most performances feel phoned in, poor dialog, sub-par CGI, boring, old characters are uninteresting and new characters bring nothing new.

1.5/5 Stars