By Paul Hall, www.channelguidemag.com
The Divergent Series: Allegiant is the third film in the Divergent franchise, which is slated to come to a conclusion in the summer of 2017. Our hero Tris (Shailene Woodley) is back along with Four (Theo James) and many of the other residents of the newly factionless Chicago.
Jeanine has been defeated. The revised council, comprised of Evelyn (Naomi Watts), Johanna (Octavia Spencer) and others, has begun ridding the city of Jeanine’s minions. When the decisions seem to mimic Jeanine’s rule, Johanna sets out with people who don’t believe in the totalitarian approach.
Meanwhile, Tris feels called to the area outside the wall and begins a journey with a group of six Chicago residents to find out what lies in the unknown. Soon after arriving in a magical city, it is clear to the travelers that the Chicago they called home is a giant experiment and that everyone there has been under intense scrutiny. David (Jeff Daniels), the area’s leader, is hard to get a read on — he seems to genuinely care for the folks inside the walls of Chicago, but he doesn’t always exhibit the compassion that someone would expect.
While assimilating in their new home, Tris, Four, Peter (Miles Teller) and the others start to become skeptical of the mission of the residents around them. And as the city that was formerly their home begins to devolve further into a splintered totalitarian environment, once again they must figure out who their true friends are in order to save their home.
The Divergent Series has been an interesting run of films. In Divergent, we started down the path with a film that was interesting and full of wonder for what was to come. For Insurgent, the ride became bumpy, but the war to rid Chicago of Jeanine’s rule had moments of true fun and interest. But for Allegiant, it feels like the filmmakers disconnected from what they had done right in the past just to create another chapter in the story with a total lack of attention to detail.
Woodley, James, Teller, Ansel Elgort, Zoë Kravitz and Maggie Q are just fine as the crew of adventurers. But some of the characters we have come to love, or hate, seem to have been trivialized. Watts’ Evelyn is thought to be conflicted between her son and city domination, but I never found myself believing it. Daniels’ David is underexplored and we never see any motivation for his behaviors (but maybe I’ll have to wait until the next film for that). All the actors are there, though it felt many were just going through the motions.
But the acting was the least of my concerns. The visual effects, which tended to be cool for setting the mood in the first films, were almost forgotten in this film. They felt cheap and they distracted from the story — so much so that I dwelled on how uninspired they were. In Divergent the mood was enhanced as Tris made her initial journey into Dauntless. Here, a journey to the new and unknown city elicits zero emotion or tension. Instead I just uttered in the back of my head, “Are we there yet?”
Where the franchise goes from here, I do not know. If filmmakers hope to keep the fans of this series allegiant, they need to realize that although their base is predominantly younger, the youth of today are smarter and expect more from the films they support.
The Divergent Series: Allegiant
Rated: PG-13
Stars: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller
Director: Robert Schwentke
Grade: C-
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