The Divergent Series: Insurgent, the
latest chapter in The Hunger Games heir apparent, is a
flaming-hot, crazy-ass train wreck. And I mean that in both the most
entertaining and terrible ways possible. To be sure, this is a significant
improvement over the previous film in the family, 2014’s
Divergent. It’s not without serious flaws, and I don’t know
if I’d go so far to call it good or actually recommend it, but while it can be
tedious and asinine, random weirdness and strange flourishes mean it can also
be pretty damn entertaining.
The action picks up shortly after the last one left off.
Beatrice “Tris” Prior (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) are on the run
from the nefarious Jeanine (Kate Winslet) who hunts them down because they’re
Divergent and don’t fit in—there’s more to it, but that’s the gist. They still
live in the same, overly simplified society that you saw the last time out, and
that is, again, the film’s biggest weakness. When they harp on the fact that
the remnants of humanity in this dystopian, post-apocalyptic world have been
divided into five factions based on their dominant personality trait, and that
everyone somehow thinks this is the best way to live, you can’t help but groan.
Though there are entire scenes of this, and listening to
overly serious dialogue about living your life by one guiding principle is
frustrating and stretches every last bit of credulity you can muster,
fortunately it’s pushed more to the side enough that you can largely ignore it
as the pace picks up. The bulk of the story is Tris and Four trying to avoid
detection, occasionally running from Jeanine’s forces—she’s now instituted
martial law, who saw that coming?—forming alliances with other rebels, and
basically tooling up for a coming war.
And there is a shocking amount of murder. Obviously, when
there is this much gunplay involved, there are going to be casualties, but I’m
not talking about that. It’s not excessively gory or graphic, you rarely see
much blood, but there are a stunning number of straight up executions. These
movies are based on Veronica Roth’s series of young adult novels, but there are
a half-dozen times where a character walks up to another, usually defenseless,
often kneeling, looks them in the eye, says something to them, and coldly pulls
the trigger. And it isn’t just villains either. The noble heroes, one of their
mothers, everyone gets in on the act. It’s genuinely startling and a bit
troubling.
The performances are fine. Everyone is solid, though they’re
not asked to do too much. Tris generally fluctuates between being haunted by
terrible nightmares about the death of those close to her and poorly
controlling her rage. She’s got some anger issues, and there is a great deal of
lower lip trembling and tears, juxtaposed with angry lunging and bones snapping.
James is primarily there to look dreamy, and a cast of excellent actors—Naomi
Watts, Ray Stevenson, Octavia Spencer—do decent work, collecting a paycheck for
showing up, and not having to work too hard or strain anything.
Winslet has a decent amount of fun, adding a devilish,
wicked witch embellishment here and there. Miles Teller, however, is having a damn
fine time every moment he appears on screen. His Peter primarily exists in the
first film to be a dick—Teller has even publicly stated that the entire process
made him feel dead inside—but this time out he provides something that
Insurgent otherwise wholly lacks: a sense of humor. The rest
of the movie is so deadpan serious—which in itself leads to some moderate
laughs—that Teller, who has an absolute blast with Peter’s smarmy, ambitious,
out-for-number-one attitude, is a breath of fresh air. It’s not enough to save
the movie, but it’s a nice change of pace from the sighing teen melodrama. He
also serves as the guy who keeps the action moving. In moments when Tris and
Four are just about to fall into a black hole of staring deeply into each
other’s eyes, Peter is the one who is like, “Come on guys, there’s time for
that later, lets get moving.”
And then things get weird, like hallucinatory fever dream
weird. As Tris works to unravel the mystery left by her dead parents, as well
as figure out why Divergents are so dangerous in the first place, she winds up
in a series of simulations that are just bonkers, like burning apartments
flying through the sky, people dissolving in front of her face, and skyscrapers
bursting apart top to bottom. It all feeds into a very obvious, and literal,
Matrix-style Messiah saga.
Maybe it’s the beneficiary of having zero expectations after
Divergent, but Insurgent is a step in the
right direction for the franchise, albeit a small one. The intended target
audience is likely going to love this, and most of the rest of you are going to
absolutely hate this, and you probably already know where you fall. For good or
ill, with all kinds of murder, jumping on and off of moving trains, and
hallucinatory fever dream, this is definitely a spectacle to behold, one that
will leave you baffled, wondering what the hell you just watched. [Grade: C]
No comments:
Post a Comment