* ½
out of ****
I
hate to admit it, but I kind of enjoyed the first two movies
in the “Divergent” series. I can't really explain why – they
were pretty nonsensical and hinged entirely on completely unexplained
mental/emotional phenomena, but I was interested enough in how
everything played out that I was curious to see if they could do it
again.
Unfortunately,
they couldn't.
“Allegiant”
is what the first two movies should have been – so buried in its
own completely foreign mythology that it is impossible to care about
what is unfolding on the screen. We find Tris and company now having
to escape Chicago because the formerly powerless “factionless”
have nailed the city down, taking over as a new totalitarian force
since the old one has now been defeated. Tris and Four, along with a
couple of others, escape to the wasteland where they are eventually
taken to the outer realm's leaders. Here they are told that the
factions and locked down city were an experiment meant to find
genetically “pure” individuals, of which Tris is the first.
Finding her is somehow the route to remove all the genetic “damage”
of pretty much everyone else.
Make
sense? Of course not. It makes no sense at all. It's such a
terrible explanation for the previous two movies that it's just plain
silly. Tris even comes to be so devoted to this oddball cause that
she follows it instead of her true love, Four, who goes off in hopes
of preventing war back in Chicago.
This
movie was painful to sit through. It was visually appealing and had
plenty of action, but the plot was too ridiculous for any of that to
matter. I have thoroughly enjoyed Shailene Woodley in every film
I've seen her in up to this point, but even her talent couldn't
rescue this turkey from the roasting pan. That they are continuing
to plan one more movie to finish the series mystifies me.... where
the hell can they possibly go with this, other than to pull a
“Newhart” and make the whole damn thing a bad dream?
The
inexplicable magic that made the first two movies interesting is
gone. Avoid this film – it stinks.
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