Insurgent

First off, I have to apologize for not posting in a while. I've been caught up with some other things and I haven't had the chance to actually sit down and knock out a couple posts. I hope you've enjoyed the past few ones and now that I actually went out and saw a recent movie, I thought it was time to take a break from the other things pressing me right now just to give you my thoughts on Insurgent.

Now, if you recall, I actually was pleasantly surprised by Divergent. Yeah it had a lot of elements that reminded me of The Hunger Games, but it actually turned around and decided to be a little bit different of a movie.

Unfortunately, maybe I've been busy, maybe I just have a bad memory, so I had kind of forgotten what had happened since I had last seen these characters, but here's where Divergent left off.

So at the end of Divergent, Tric (played by Shailene Woodley) and her companions, her boyfriend Four (played by Theo James) her Erudite brother Caleb (played by Ansel Elgort) and randomly Miles Teller (his characters name is Peter but he's always just been Miles Teller to me in this film series) are on the run from the evil government that is taking advantage of the faction system that is the system in this post apocalyptic world. They're on the run, only because Tric and Four are Divergents, the people who do not fit into one faction, but they are also blamed for the events of the first movie.

When I saw the trailers for this movie, not having read the book, I thought this movie had a really great opportunity laid down at its feet. Whereas the newest Hunger Games: Mockingjay was set in this revolutionary setting, Katniss was never really in the fight, she was never really massing people together to fight, it was more focused on the propaganda videos created by both sides in order to bring people to their side, not the actual fighting. I thought Insurgent had the great opportunity to show that side of the struggle, to show the post apocalyptic youths rising up against the evil President Snow... I mean... Jeanine... (played by Kate Winslet.)

Unfortunately, the movie never really does that. It never really focuses on the rallying of the troops, instead its just kind of floating in space. The main characters are just kind of floating and don't really have a purpose... until about the last third of the film. They'll come to this one group of people, hang out with them for a while, then float on over to another group of people when the bad guys reach them. They start the movie with Octavia Spencer and her clan of hippies. We don't really get to know Spencer's character at all, in fact, I kind of forgot she was in the movie, but hey! Here's a celebrity cameo I suppose. Then they migrate over to the factionless group, headed up by Naomi Watts when the bad guys show up at the hippy camp.

Which by the way, Naomi Watts is stunning in this film. I suppose she's suppose to be Four's mom or something but I was thinking she was maybe a former lover of his until he said she was his mom. Just stunning.

But its the same deal. They hang out there for a while, then they go onto hang out with the Candor Clan and shenanigans ensue there. I feel like there wasn't enough time spent at these places to really flush out this interesting world that has been created, or create some opportunity to really win these factions over against Kate Winslet. Instead it was just kind of convoluted and not exactly a strong story.

I think the good part of it all was the internal conflict of Tric.

Shailene Woodley, I would say, has really embraced this role. I could akin this role to Jennifer Lawrence and Katniss and how that really boost her career. The same can be said about Shailene Woodley.

So Tric is feeling immense guilt over the events of the first film. And that is shown pretty well throughout the film. And the better part of it all is that there seems to be a point of resolution within her. She seems to forgive herself after almost literally facing her inner demons.

The problem with it is that I feel like those parts were so blown over because they were trying to get to the next thing. Its kind of interesting having that reaction because I haven't read the book. I don't know if things went that fast or if they skipped some parts, but I feel like while they were sprinkled in nicely, they didn't always meld with smart decisions in the story. And that's the biggest problem I have with Tric, sometimes she just does things that are stupid. She's a very capable heroine and I think if the series wasn't so overshadowed by films like The Hunger Games, Tric could be a really memorable character. The problem is that she is overshadowed and for the convenience of the film, she's forced to do things that I just have to question as smart.

Also her issue with Four seem very forced and contrived.

Now on Four, I think he's actually a really good supporting character. He's your strong, tall, dark, and handsome love interest, but I think the movie made a real effort to make sure that this is Tris's story, not his. He's there to support her. While he may actually be the leader, this story is on Tris and that I actually liked.

But I almost feel like because they were trying to hard to make sure the focus stayed on Tris, it took away from any development of Four at all. There's a little bit of conflict with him and his mother, but that is quickly pushed aside. Again, he's not a horrible character, and I do like that he doesn't steal the spotlight from Tris, but I think he's a little bit boring in this movie as he's just the supporting boyfriend.

The same can be said about her friend Christina. I understand that she probably didn't have that big of a part in the second book as she didn't have a huge part in this movie. But any problems that Tris had with her had one brief scene of conflict and then suddenly she's one hundred percent behind Tris despite the fact that the last scene, she was all pissed at Tris.

So there are the characters who are incredibly devoted to Tric, and then there are the ones who oddly change their loyalty at the drop of a hat.

Most namely Miles Teller.

Now Miles Teller and Ansel Elgort are both rising stars and I'm kind of wondering if they were getting bored with this film series by the end of the first one. Honestly, they both look a little bored in this film. Now I can't totally blame them because I think both their characters are horribly written and their loyalties change at the strangest places.

I'm confused on why they even brought Miles Teller along with them and the first chance he gets, he screws them over almost immediately. The motivations for the big betrayals in this movie are really weak and just down right silly.

I talked with my girlfriend and she said that the book does a better job at explaining the betrayals and changing of alliances, especially in a character like the one Miles Teller plays. But if I have to go to the book to explain something that didn't work in the movie, that's kind of a disappointing movie in my book.

That being said, despite me thinking that Miles Teller didn't exactly bring it in this film, I am excited to see him in Fantastic Four and I even would love to see him in a Star Wars movie in the future. It may seem random, but something about this futuristic film and Miles Teller just made me think he'd be a really good character in Star Wars. Maybe give him a good script but keep him as the same really smart, but conniving bastard he is in this film, and just put it in the Star Wars universe, I could actually be down for that for some reason.

And then you get to President Snow... because lets be honest, Kate Winslet is just female President Snow. She's evil just for the sake of being evil and she's the self proclaimed leader, not really having a fair or understandable motive, but because she wants power. And that was really relevant in this film. You could tell she was just doing this for power. Which I mean that's not a horrible villain trait, but I think I would have wanted to see her actually be a sympathetic villain, the kind that is so evil but at the same time you can see their point of view.

This one, was just plot convenient and kind of boring. I mean, Kate Winslet is surprisingly good at playing a bad guy but I really don't think she'll be nearly as memorable of a character as President Snow is in The Hunger Games. Now I actually don't really like Donald Sutherland as President Snow, but at least he's memorable.

Honestly, the allies are undeniably good allies with unshaken devotion, the sort of bad guys have horrible motivations for betraying Tris and her gang, and the evil character is just blind evil.

And again, I would have liked to see Tris do something Katniss could never do. Actually fight in this Civil War going on.

I mean, if you're going to have this character be in this revolution, have them fight in the revolution for pete's sake.

But they don't really do that in this film.

The last third of the movie is going back to that Inception-like test mode and that is actually where the first movie kind of hooked me in. I think when they brought that back, that was actually one of the better parts of the movie. But at that point, it was a little too late, it was brought on by plot convenience and the results were just a little too coincidental. Everything seemed cliched and not anything I haven't seen before.

Now the ending actually kind of took me by surprise and I'm going to have to wait until the next movie to see where they actually go with this. It wasn't where I thought this film series was headed. Honestly, I almost feel like they could have ended the series with this movie. With the exception of one thing at the end, the movie actually wraps up pretty well. But this of course is a trilogy and the third movie will be split into two movies. But I actually think if for some reason, they wanted to end the series here, they probably could. I would actually be okay with this being the climax and conclusion to the film. But of course I am now two movies in and I would feel incomplete if I didn't watch the third movie. I guess I'll just have to wait.

Overall, Insurgent is not the worst second installment of a movie franchise, but it is miles from the top. It seems like a lot of this movie abandoned the things that made the first movie a pleasant surprise for me and kind of fell back into the formula that you see with every young adult book series film these days. It didn't feel new, it didn't surprise me (much) and it made me think that this film was just a rip off of the Hunger Games again. Hopefully the third movie can change things around, but for now, I'm not exactly impressed with the Divergent series.

But what did you think of it? Comment and Discuss below! Or shoot me a message @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get updates on movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. Here's an honest trailer for another generic young adult series, the Maze Runner. Enjoy!