Movie review: The Divergent Series – Allegiant

Hello!

Sorry for not writing for more than a week. I was really busy with university work and midterm assignments. But since it’s the weekend, I have a little bit of time to give you my thoughts on The Divergent Series: Allegiant! I swear the names of these films just keep getting longer and longer. Thank God that this one doesn’t have ‘Part 1’ in its name, though.

IMDb summary: After the earth-shattering revelations of Insurgent, Tris must escape with Four beyond the wall that encircles Chicago to finally discover the shocking truth of what lies behind it.

While watching this film, I came to the conclusion that I might have grown out of these dystopian movies or, at least, moved on to a different phase in my life. I also don’t think that I am the only one who did that: I would be really interested to know how financially successful this movie will be and whether the mainstream audiences are still interested in this genre of YA science fiction. But then again, there are only 3 (or only 2, since THG has ended) of dystopian franchises left, while there are more than 10 different comic book series and those movies are always profitable, despite how oversaturated the market is.

SPOILERS

Writing

The script for this film was written by a whole bunch of people: Noah Oppenheim, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Stephen Chbosky. It was, of course, based on the book by Veronica Roth. Chbosky is the one person from this group whose work I am familiar with. He, of course, wrote the book and the screen version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and he also directed that film. That narrative is one of my favorite coming-of-age stories ever. Chobsky is also writing a script for next year’s Beauty and the Beast for Disney’s live action fairytale department.  Meanwhile, Oppenheim has worked in the genre of dystopian fiction before – he was one of the screenwriters on The Maze Runner. Lastly, Cooper and Collage have previously worked together on the controversial Exodus: Gods and Kings film. I think that all the writers of the film did an okay job. The story had some nice moments as well as enough of terrible ones.

Book To Movie

It has been 3 years since I read the book that this movie has been based on, so I do not remember all the tiny details, but I feel that the movie’s story was as faithful as it could be to the original material. As far as I remember, the book had more subplots and more characters, with personal aims, involved in the main events, but I am totally fine with the film cutting out half of them if that makes the plot more concise and focuses up the story. If they would have chosen to include everything from the book into the picture, we would have ended up with a whole lot of narration – basically, it would be the same as listening to the audio book.  Also, the things that were in the book, but weren’t present in this film, might still appear in The Divergent Series: Ascendant. Remember, while this film doesn’t have ‘Part 1’ in its name, it still is only the first half of the final entry into the franchise.

Speculations about Ascendant

Speaking about the story, I think that some of the book things that the were missing from this film but the last movie will probably include are:

1. Nita’s subplot and rebellion inside the bureau
2. Caleb’s and Tris’s relationship and the idea of sacrifice
3. More scenes with Tris and Christina (I don’t think that they had one full scene together in Allegiant at all)
4. The book ending – HUGE SPOILER for the next film. I remember that I was shocked when I read it in the book and I really hope that they will keep this ending. It’s not only brave and different but a quite nice cinematic twist. This franchise would definitely earn back my respect if they did it.

Changes

A few of the changes that I could spot were:

1. The whole set- up for the escape was completely different. However, while the premise and the process were altered, the final outcome stayed the same.
2. The actual group Allegiant played a slightly different role and showed up later in the film’s story than in the book’s story.
3. A much smaller group of already somewhat established characters participated in the escape in the film.
4. In the book, there was an inoculation serum which was not present in the film.
5. I don’t remember anything about the plasma balls and drones in the book. I think that the filmmakers just thought that it would a cool visual,  however, it ended up being a kinda stupid idea.
6. Lastly, I don’t think that there was such institution as the council in the book.

Gripes about the story

While reading the story in the book, I didn’t really have problems with it, but watching it on screen made me realize how annoying and frustrating it sometimes was/is. For one, the death of Tori was so obvious – why would she deliberately stand further back? Also, how could Evelyn not realize that the memory serum would affect everyone? The film also had kinda an abrupt ending as it was only the first 1 of the bigger picture. Other problems I had with the film were more visual or aural. For one, that 3D exposition in the bureau was obviously meant for the viewers and not the characters. Moreover, the technology and the architecture of the place wasn’t even remotely realistic. Lastly, all the screams, especially in that aircraft, sounded really fake.

Things I liked

Okay, I feel like I have been too harsh on this film, so I will tell you 2 things that I actually enjoyed about the story. Number 1: I liked the idea that old methods in new circumstances will equal to the same mistakes and Number 2: I enjoyed the fact that they didn’t portray David as a straight up villain. He was kinda right in saying that peace is impossible to achieve without the struggle.

Visuals and Directing

Insurgent’s director Robert Schwentke returned to direct the 3rd film. To my mind, he did a good job. I noticed that he used a lot of overhead panning out shots as well as the circle/around traveling shots. The short fight on the plane was probably my favorite action sequence, just because it was the most realistic. The CGI of the film was also okay – nothing too groundbreaking but nothing bad as well.

I really loved the mise-en-scene of the film. That includes the brown/orange/red/yellow wasteland as the setting and the soldiers’ costumes which changed colours (red outdoors, grey and black inside). I also have to praise the editing department for the opening sequence – I liked the futurist and pixelated font in the old school color of gold. It was a nice juxtaposition between tradition and modernity.

Soundtrack

Allegiant’s soundtrack was put together by Joseph Trapanese. I especially liked his pick for the main theme/end credits song – Scars by Tove Lo. Since I’m a fan of Lo, I have been listening to this track even before I watched the movie – I highly recommend you give it a listen even if you don’t plan on watching the film.

Acting

As with all YA movies, the cast consisted of young up-and-coming actors and older more accomplished ones.

• The ‘youngsters’ were led by Shailene Woodley as Tris. She was good in the action scenes as well as in more challenging dramatic ones. Still, my favorite movie of hers will always be TFIOS. She will be starring in Snowden – a political thriller later this year. Theo James starred as Four, the love interest. He was perfectly fine in the role and is currently working on another Underworld film.
• Ansel Elgort played Caleb, while Zoë Kravitz starred as Christina. Both of them had really tiny roles, but I quite liked their funny moment together in that aircraft. I am really interested in Elgort’s next project – the movie Billionaire Boys Club.  Kravitz doesn’t really have any big movies coming up, but you can always rewatch Mad Max Fury Road if you want to see a really good movie of hers. 
• Miles Teller as Peter. I really hated the character of Peter in the book, but I loved him in the film, probably because Teller was playing him. I am a fan of his and would like to forget the disaster of Fantastic Four as quickly as possible. Teller as Peter had basically all the funny lines and one-liners of the film. Next, we will see Miles in the comedy Get a Job and in 3 other films later this year.

The adult cast of the film consisted of Jeff Daniels as David, Naomi Watts as Evelyn, and Octavia Spencer as Johanna. I feel like, for them, this movie was/is the definition of a paycheck gig.

All in all, Allegiant was an okay film. I didn’t expect much from it to be truthful, so I wasn’t that disappointed. It’s not a must-see, but if you have nothing better to watch or do, you will have a pleasant time watching Allegiant.

Rate: 3.2/5

Trailer: The Divergent Series: Allegiant trailer