Lionsgate
Ever since 20th Century Fox decided to split the final Twilight story into two parts, every franchise with a concluding chapter has felt the need to do the same thing, not out of necessity but out of greed. The Harry Potter and Hunger Games franchises followed suit, with the critical response being that the first part was nothing but padding, and now The Divergent Series has bloated its final chapter into two parts, although cleverly giving the last two movies different titles. The latest, Allegiant, is now in theaters and …
It picks up right where Insurgent ended, with the murder of Janine (Kate Winslet) and our heroes on the run, attempting to get to and over the wall that surrounds the remains of Chicago. No one knows what’s outside, but they are sure that it has to be better than where they are now. Especially with Four’s (Theo James) mother now basically the new Janine, carrying out the executions of those who worked for her predecessor (meaning we lose one carry over from the last film, Mekhi Phifer, before the main action begins). Four also helps break Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Tris’ traitor brother, out of prison before he can be terminated next.
Of course weaselly Peter (Miles Teller) threatens to throw a monkey wrench in their plans unless they take him with them, and with the help of Christina (Zoë Kravitz), who secures counterfeit release orders for Caleb, the band of renegades, including Tori (Maggie Q), head for the wall. Naturally, Evelyn’s (Naomi Watts) forces are on to the scheme and pursue them to the wall, where all but one makes a daring escape to the other side (unfortunately, that one is not Peter).
The other side of the wall appears to be a radioactive wasteland, in a monotone color of orange, but the group is surprised to find there is something out there – another wall, albeit invisible, that hides an oasis of sorts in the ruins of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport (and there is nothing at all on the outside that looks even remotely like an airport, with only one abandoned terminal area inside to remind us it was an airport). There, they meet Matthew (Bill Skarsgård) who then takes Tris (Shailene Woodley) to meet David (Jeff Daniels), where she learns she is genetically pure and the key to healing all of the “damaged” people, putting an end to the factions and saving the human race.
And then the story just kind of goes nowhere as David’s military force invade settlements to steal children, and Peter agrees to help David take down Evelyn but introducing some kind of mind-erasing gas into Chicago (and how many more times can this group trust Peter to NOT screw them over?). It all gets a bit convoluted with David having some kind of video surveillance system all over Chicago – he’s been watching all along, and even knows about Tris’ mother from when she was a child – and trying to figure out what his motives are.
Perhaps the cast was just as unimpressed with the story as I was because they appear to be just phoning in their performances. No one seems to have any real conviction for what they’re doing, except for Elgort who seems to be having fun helping to save the day. Everyone else is there due to contractual obligations. Although, of the new cast members, I did like Skarsgård because his character at least had an arc of being David’s right hand to switching teams when he saw what David was actually doing.
Allegiant is an effects-heavy film too, from the ruins of Chicago to the wasteland outside the wall, but for a movie that must have had a huge budget, once Tris and friends get over that wall (and the climbing scene was pretty thrilling), the rest of the effects are passable at best, but often downright laughable. When the group is permitted behind the “camo wall” (and for the longest time I thought they were saying “camel wall”), they are put into some kind of containment orb to keep them from contaminating everyone else (and we have no idea how long the outside world has been radioactive, but one could foresee some major health problems for these characters at some point), and it is the cheesiest thing ever, especially as the group becomes subpar video game CG characters inside those blobs, setting back effects technology a good decade or so. And can someone please tell me what those large, weird structures that litter the wasteland are? They make no sense in the landscape. If Chicago is still basically in one piece, even though it’s crumbling, you’d think there would still be some vestiges of civilization outside the wall that was as recognizable as that city.
Perhaps the cast is so detached because the script is so elementary. Outside of some of David’s techno-babble, the dialog is pretty basic. One would think that these movies would be getting better as they go along, but Allegiant takes some giant steps backward, probably because of the enforced padding by a studio greedy to make a few more bucks from its last franchise (Lionsgate also produced The Hunger Games). Hopefully the final film, Ascendant which opens June 7, 2017, will amp up the action, the story and the effects for a satisfying conclusion, but will the anyone but the hardcore completists even bother turning up?
The Divergent Series: Allegiant has a run time of 2 hours, and is rated PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements, and some partial nudity.
Share this post
