You aren't the only one rebelling, Tris.
This weekend marks the release of Insurgent, the sequel to last year's mildly successful Divergent (which I reviewed recently), and as such has been a film which I've been attacking like a virus ever since the first teaser hit the web back in November. Whilst it's no secret that I'm no fan of a majority of Young Adult adaptations - being one of the few not to praise The Fault in Our Stars, making The Giver my biggest disappointment of 2014, having The Maze Runner as one of the most overrated and showing strong dislike of The Hunger Games franchise even as it reaches its conclusion - it's interesting how much I bear a grudge against this particular franchise. Why, against the likes of Twilight and The Giver, do I choose this series as something to avoid? And why, in particular, this instalment?
To address the elephant in the room, I wasn't a fan of Divergent - spoilers for my review - and found it an absolute bore-fest. It had no distinguishable features to draw itself away from comparisons to the competition, and appeared as though Lionsgate just wanted to repeat the success of The Hunger Games. Heck, Summit Entertainment (who made the Twilight films) got the rights to the series before the first book was even published. They knew that they could easily turn it into a mega-franchise and earn big bucks once again. Unfortunately for them, the first film didn't have the same box office numbers or critical acclaim as neither series, garnered mixed responses and $288m worldwide. But that hasn't stopped the studios, as plans quickly grew for the standard finale-split that Harry Potter made famous and Lionsgate/Summit have repeated with financial success.
But it's more than just the quality of the first instalment and its financial success, it's the fact that this sequel is doing nothing to prove itself as a film of its own, still borrowing elements from other YA films - this time trying to have a huge battle a la Deathly Hallows/Mockingjay, just with the addition of what appears to be a second half filled with terrible CGI - at least, going by each trailer, poster, clip, and any piece of promotional material - as a magic macguffin which can only be opened by one person. Gee, I wonder who that could be? Could it be Tris? Must be, because it's the same person every time because they're the special little snowflake. Some films break that trend, and have it that the lead character isn't destined to be the hero. Heck, some of the best films broke that trend last year by either building it up as so and pulling the carpet under the audiences' feet or have characters just coincidentally be placed in a life-threatening situation. But what makes it worse in this case? Apparently, because Tris is 100% Divergent (since when did percentages come to play?), she has to be the one. Because I assume there's no one else like her. Yeah, suffice to say, it’s a terrible storyline - but that's not where the buck stops.
Shailene Woodley is a fine actress. Whilst I never understood why people wanted her to get an Oscar nomination for Fault in Our Stars, she did have a good performance in it, whilst I have heard nothing but good stuff about The Descendants and The Spectacular Now. Perhaps being an action hero isn't her forte though, as she struggled through the first Divergent, and seeing her perform stunts and wield guns looks completely unnatural - and the less said about the new hairdo the better. Theo James was in The Inbetweeners Movie and the Underworld series, so you can tell that he doesn't have the best agent, although his acting does match the quality of all these films; Jai Courtney is an absolute travesty of an actor (I pray for the quality of Terminator: Genisys and Suicide Squad); Ansel Egort is fine but makes some interesting career choices; Miles Teller does it for the money so he can be in great films like Whiplash; and Kate Winslet has arguably been stuck in a rut since Revolutionary Road. Meanwhile, new additions like Octavia Spencer and Naomi Watts aren't exactly adding a masterpiece to their resumes - then again, even with Oscar nominations and wins they aren't doing well. As for director Robert Schwentke, just look as his filmography, it says a lot.
It's safe to say that I'm no fan of what this film may be, and going by critics I have every right to keep back. I don't want more films like this, and neither should audiences. Leave it for fans and fans alone.
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