I’m
still trying to decide what I think of Insurgent. While the first movie in the franchised
diverged moderately from the book (see what I did there?), the second
installment veers off pretty substantially.
The characters and story move to the same places, but the routes they
take to get there are very different.
Good different or bad different?
Some of each, truth be told, and the big question is, which is more
prominent?
As in
the book, Tris and her cohorts are on the run from the Erudite leaders out for
Divergent blood. Jeanine, the head of
Erudite, wants Tris for a secret project, but whereas Book!Jeanine needs a lab
rat on which to test Divergent-proof serums, Movie!Jeanine has a super-special
MacGuffin (sort of) box that contains vital information and can only be opened
by a perfect Divergent. The plot here is
a bit more focused and streamlined, but what it gains in coherency, it loses in
a fair amount of character shading.
Not
that the movie is without character development. The added plot elements offer some pretty
neat insights into Tris, and some important points – like her guilt and
post-traumatic stress over the events of the first movie – are maintained. I think Four comes across better in the
movie, and the film takes advantage of Miles Teller’s post-Whiplash profile to expand on Peter’s character. However, we don’t get much into the theme of
Tris’s goals and ideas going against the plans of her faction, seeing Tris
wrestling with following Dauntless or doing what she thinks is right. And while the PTSD is included, chiefly in
her nightmares and some of the MacGuffin-box-induced simulations, the film
completely ignores Tris’s fear/reticence of handling guns after what happens to
her in Divergent.
And of
course, most of the supporting characters are glorified window dressing, if
that. As Amity leader Joanna, Octavia
Spencer has shockingly little to do, and the awesome Daniel Dae Kim does what
he can to bring Candor leader Jack to life with his limited screentime. Some Dauntless members who were left out of
the first film, notably Uriah and Lynn, are introduced here, and while the
young actors do a fine job capturing the characters, the screenplay offers
little sense of who they are and what their inner lives might involve. Finally, I know I mentioned Maggie Q’s Tori
in my Divergent review, and I still
love her, but why did they go to the trouble of casting Maggie Q if they were
going to excise Tori’s entire plot? At
least she had Tris’s testing in the first movie; here, she hardly has more to
do than any other Dauntless member. Boo!
Just in
general, this movie feels a little tighter, a little more purposeful, than Divergent. Some sloppiness from the book gets tidied up,
the conflict between Tris and Jeanine gets central focus, and some of the
fighting is pretty excellent – there’s a long combat sequence on a train that’s
terrific. Additionally, Tris’s dreams and
simulations, which I already mentioned, are all fantastically rendered. They look great, and the simulations are
especially cool (well thought-out, too, which is obviously a big plus.)
Warnings
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