The Neverending Story

This week Lionsgate Studios announced that after the less than stellar box office performance of Divergent 3: Part 1, er, I mean The Divergent Series: Allegiant, the final chapter of the series will now be a TV movie instead of a theatrical film.

The first Divergent movie was a modest hit that grossed around $150 million, while the second brought in a decent $130 million. Lionsgate then revealed they'd be splitting the third film in the series into two parts in a blatant attempt to rake in more box office earnings in order to "do the story justice and give it room to breathe." The Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games franchises pulled this same "split finale" crap, with great success.

Unfortunately for the studio, Allegiant turned out to be a huge flop, grossing just $66 million against its whopping $110 million dollar budget. I have no idea where all that money went, but it definitely wasn't up on the screen.

It's easy to see why Allegiant flopped. Unlike other Young Adult films, the Divergent series just doesn't have any stakes. In The Hunger Games films, teens are forced to hunt and kill one another in order to survive. In Divergent, teens are forced to pick one of five Factions in which to live and work. Seriously. That's it. They're rebelling against mandatory job placement. The horror. The horror...

Additionally, The Divergent Series can't even be bothered to stick with its own premise. The main concept of The Hunger Games— that of televised killing— was prevalent (to a degree) in every film. The "Forced Factions" premise of Divergent is dropped after the first movie, as the story quickly devolves into a muddled, plotless mess. It was also a huge waste of actress Maggie Q.

And then Lionsgate wonders why these films aren't box office smashes.

The final chapter of the series, The Divergent Series: Ascendant, was scheduled to hit theaters in June 2017. According to studio insiders, Lionsgate has scrapped that notion, and now plans to wrap up the series on the small screen with a much cheaper, scaled-down TV movie. The film will then segue into a TV series, starring a new cast of characters (which I guarantee will never come to pass).

At this point, the studio isn't sure if the cast of Allegiant will return for the TV movie or not.

All I have to say about the situation is "Good!" Serves the studio right for gouging the audience. Greedy bastards. They never should have split the final film in half in the first place. There was barely enough material in the last book for one movie, let alone two. You could practically feel the padding!

The whole sorry affair just pisses me off. I've already wasted devoted six hours of my life to watching these cinematic turds, and now I probably won't get to see the finale and find out how the story ends because they'll likely air on either HBO or Showtime. Frustrating!

Ah well. I can barely remember what happened in any of the movies anyway, so... who cares? 

Let's hope this incident puts an end to the "split finale" phenomenon once and for all.

It Came From The Cineplex: The Divergent Series: Allegiant

Divergent 3, Part 1, also known as The Divergent Series: Allegiant, was written by Stephen Chbosky, Bill Collage, Adam Cooper and Noah Oppenheim (Jesus, did it really take four people to write this thing?). It was directed by Robert Schwentke.

Chbosky previously wrote Rent and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, both of which make him the perfect choice to pen a post-apocalyptic young adult thriller. Collage and Cooper are writing partners who previously collaborated on Accepted, Exodus: Gods And Kings and The Transporter Refueled, all of which were horrible, horrible pieces of cimema. They also worked on Of Kings And Prophets, ABC's sexy biblical series (really!) and Game Of Thrones clone that was cancelled after airing just two episodes. Oppenheim previously wrote The Maze Runner, which is yet another mediocre Young Adult series, and explains a lot.

Schwentke previously directed Flightplan, The Time Traveler's Wife, Red, R.I.P.D. and The Divergent Series: Insurgent.

Allegiant is based on the Divergent series of books by Veronica Roth, and is a sequel to Divergent and The Divergent Series: Insurgent.

When The Hunger Games became a surprise hit in 2012, Lionsgate Studios immediately began snapping up Young Adult novels, including The Divergent Series, hoping to recreate that success. Unfortunately for them, that hasn't been the case, as the Divergent series has grossed far less than the various Hunger Games films.

The reasons are obvious. Divergent just doesn't have the same sense of danger or urgency. In The Hunger Games the stakes are incredibly high, as teens are forced to hunt and kill one another to survive. In Divergent, teens are forced to pick one of five Factions in which to live and work. Seriously. That's it. Mandatory job placement, which is something many people in our current economy would kill to have. The horror. The horror...

And then Lionsgate wonders why these films aren't box office smashes.

Additionally, The Divergent Series can't even be bothered to stick with its own premise. The main concept of The Hunger Games— that of televised killing— was prevalent (to a degree) in every film. The "Forced Factions" premise of Divergent is dropped after the first movie, as the story quickly devolves into a muddled, plotless mess.

In the past five years or so, it's become the trend for movie studios to split the final installment of a series into two films, as a blatant and obvious cash grab. It happened with the Harry Potter series, Twilight and The Hunger Games. 

Lionsgate pulls the same stunt here, splitting the final Divergent book, Allegiant, into two parts. Unfortunately there was barely enough material for one film, much less two, which results in a dull, slow and bloated narrative. Seriously, you can almost feel the padding. Halfway through I was checking my watch, trying to will the hands to move faster.

Apparently I'm not the only one who's had it with these transparent attempts to generate more cash for the studio coffers. Allegiant had the lowest ever opening for a Divergent film, managing to rake in an anemic $30 million against its $110 million budget. This has prompted Lionsgate to announce it's slashing the budget of the fourth and final film in the series. 

Good. Serves 'em right for gouging their audience.

SPOILERS, I GUESS!

The Plot:

Now that the evil Jeanine is dead, Evelyn (played by Naomi Watts) has taken control of Chicago. Our heroine Tris (played by Shailene Woodley) and the ridiculously named Four (played by Theo James) watch as Evelyn puts everyone from the Erudite faction on trial. Instead or learning from Jeanine's mistakes, Evelyn repeats the same old patterns by executing the Erudites. Johanna, leader of Amity urges peace, but is ignored.

Tris' brother Caleb is one of the Erudites and is scheduled for execution. Four uses his status as Evelyn's son to sneak Caleb out of his cell. Tris, Four, Caleb, Christina (played by Zoe Kravitz) and Tori (played by Maggie Q) board a vehicle and intend to climb over the wall and escape into whatever's on the other side. Suddenly Peter, the Designated Asshole™ of the series, approaches and blackmails them into taking him along. Despite the fact that he's betrayed them numerous times and even tried to kill them, amazingly they bring him along. Peter is played by Ted Cruz, er, I mean Miles Teller, and may just be my all-time least favorite actor.

By the way, don't worry about keeping track of all these names. You'd have to be a massive uber-fan to know who even half of these characters are.

The group reaches the wall and use grappling hooks to scale it. Evelyn's main goon Edgar pursues Tris & Co., trying to prevent them from going over the wall. They all make it over except for Tori, who's shot and killed by Edgar. Dammit. Maggie Q gets killed, but Miles Teller lives on and on.

The group makes it over the wall and finds the only thing on the other side is a red-tinted wasteland that may or may not be radioactive. Suddenly the sky splits open before them as the hidden "cammo wall" opens. They're taken to a high tech facility on the former site of O'Hare Airport, called the Bureau Of Genetic Welfare. According to the Bureau's propaganda film, they strive to fix the Earth after a global catastrophe. Tris & Co. are cleaned up and processed, and even given jobs.

Tris meets David (played by Jeff Daniels), the Director of the Bureau. David (no last names, please) tells her that Chicago, with its faction system, is a giant living experiment, designed to produced a genetically perfect specimen, or something. He says Tris is the genetically pure result of the experiment, and all her friends are "damaged" in one way or another. He says that for years they've been using their advanced imaging machinery to watch her, and everything that happens in Chicago.

Meanwhile Caleb, who's been assigned to monitor Chicago, sees that Evelyn and Johanna (who now calls her people the Allegiant) are planning to go to war with one another. Four is assigned to the Bureau's military, and raids a Fringe settlement and captures its children. He's uneasy about this, but is even more horrified when the captured kids are dosed with an amnesia gas. Again with the mind control!

David tells Tris he plans to use her genetic pureness to somehow cleanse the world or something. Honestly none of his plan makes the least bit of sense. He takes her to Providence (whether he means Providence, Rhode Island or some futuristic colony called Providence, I have no idea) to present his plan to the Council. They're as puzzled as the audience, and tell him his experiment is a failure and they're cutting his funding. David is furious as they return to the Bureau.

Caleb is told there's no place for him in the Bureau and is taken back to Chicago. His escorts try to kill him, but he fights them off, crashing the flying ship in the process. He's captured and taken back to Chicago.

David, who's stopped trying to pretend he's not evil, recognizes that Peter is a sneaky little sh*t just like him. He sends Peter on a mission to Chicago, to deliver a shipment of the amnesia gas to Evelyn, so she can win the war against Johanna and re-institute the Factions. Again, none of this makes the least bit of sense, but just roll with it or we'll never be done with this series.

Tris steals David's ship, picks up Christina (who has absolutely nothing to do in this film) and Caleb, and they head back to Chicago. Once there, Tris is reunited with Four, and they confront Evelyn, who releases the amnesia gas on the Alegilant. Four tries to tell her that the gas will actually spread throughout the entire city, wiping everyone's memories. She changes her mind and tries to stop it, as Peter shoots her in the back. Just then the gas begins pouring into his room as well.

Tris crawls through a tunnel to get to the main shutoff valve or something, and ultimately stops the gas. Peter escapes so he can betray Tris & Co. in the fourth movie.

Tris broadcasts a poor quality hologram to the entire city, saying she rejects the "pure" and "damaged" labels, and they have to unite to defeat their oppressors. Tris and Four embrace, as an image of David, that the audience can see and they can't, glares at the two. That's it? That's the lame-ass "cliffhanger" ending they decided to go with?

Thoughts:

• There's no "Previously on The Divergent Series" recap, so if you insist on seeing this film and don't remember what happened last year, you might want to scan the wikipedia page before you go.

I wish I had refreshed my memory, because when the film started up I had a hard time remembering who the hell all these people were supposed to be, and what they were doing. These YA movies all tend to run together after a while.

• Man, that is one butt-ugly movie poster. Look at that thing! It's a washed out, cobbled-together Photoshop disaster, that looks like the designer assembled it on his laptop as he was driving to the production meeting to present it to the studio.

Additionally, that's not how real reflections work— the perspective of the black clad Tris is all wrong. And I'm betting the rest of the actors just lovvvvve the fact that they all appear upside down, and are virtually unrecognizable.

This version's much better, but even it has its problems. Like the fact that there're at least three different perspectives, and the heads have all been crudely pasted onto someone else's bodies. When exactly did Hollywood forget how to make good movie posters?

• This film reportedly had a $110 million dollar budget. I have no idea where all that cash went, but it surely wasn't up on the screen. Somehow it manages to look like a cheap Siffy Channel original film.

• As Tris & Co. are preparing to sneak away from the city and go over the wall, Peter suddenly appears and demands to go with them. Astonishingly, they say, "Why that sounds just fine," and bring him along.

Why do the characters keep trusting Peter? He's a lying, cheating, sneaking little asshole who's sold them out, betrayed them and even tried to kill them over and over in every movie so far. And later on he does the same thing in this one. 

Why doesn't Four just shoot him in his punchable face and get it over with?

• Tris and her pals climb up the side of the massive wall, and then find that the top is electrified. Why just the top would be charged and not the entire thing, I have no idea. To conserve power, perhaps? 

Anyway, Tris spots a generator truck— on her side of the wall, mind you— and repels back down and blows it up.

So is this wall supposed to keep people in, or out? I don't think it's supposed to keep invaders out, because at this point in the series most people believe there's nothing outside the wall. 

If it's supposed to keep people in, then why in the name of Zeus' Mighty Nose Hair would you put the off switch on the inner side of the fence, where it can easily be accessed?

• One last thing about the fence. Tris and her posse use grappling hooks to climb the wall, which appears to be five hundred feet tall. Maybe more. Once they reach the top, they repel down the other side, then continue down a rough, rocky cliff face that goes down another five hundred feet or so. 

Jesus, how long are those ropes?

• The group trudges across a lifeless wasteland until they reach another massive wall. This one is much more sophisticated though, as it uses holographic projectors to look like the surrounding terrain and sky. 

The characters all call this structure the "camo-wall," as in "camouflage." Unfortunately it sounded like they were saying "camel wall." It took me a while to figure out what they were really trying to say.

• Tris and the others are welcomed into the Bureau Of Genetic Welfare, which, according to the propaganda recordings, is built on top of what was O'Hare Airport. In a cutesy scene that's obviously supposed to be funny, Caleb asks, "What's an airport?" 

Derp! Caleb's from the Erudite clan. They're supposed to be the smart ones. So what exactly are these smarties taught? Yeah, yeah, this is all happening two or three hundred years in the future, after some atomic war or something, but even if airplanes no longer exist, wouldn't there be records of them?

• It's no secret that I am not a fan of actor Miles Teller. He may be a perfectly nice person for all I know, but there's just something about his face that makes me want to punch it. In fact it's all I can do right now to not ram my fist through my monitor. Maybe it's the fact that Teller looks a lot like the secret love child of simpering ninny and presidential candidate Ted Cruz.

That said, Teller comes the closest to turning in an actual performance here. He at least tries to inject a bit of personality into the Peter character, as opposed to his mannequin-like costars. 

Peter constantly refers to Tris as "Stiff," which is supposed to be a comment on the fact that she's always so serious or something, but I like to think it's Miles Teller secretly bashing Shailene Woodley's acting "talent."

• Nothing about these Divergent films has ever made any sense, and that goes double for this one. As near as I can figure, the plot goes something like this:

— Two or three hundred years ago there was a war that wiped out most of humanity. 

— A group of scientists got together and formed the Bureau Of Genetic Welfare. They set up the Faction experiment in the ruins of Chicago. Over time, splitting people into five different Factions would somehow create a perfect genetic specimen. 

–– Tris is the genetically pure result of this experiment.

— The Bureau has been using sophisticated technology to monitor Chicago for centuries, and now that Tris has escaped the city, they welcome her into their fold for… reasons. 

I think this is what happens in the films, but honest to god I'm not sure, and gave up trying to understand it all during the previous movie.

• So why does David want Tris so badly? Is he going to clone her? Mate her with a genetically pure male that we don't know about, so they can start up a new super race? Apparently it's none of our business, as David's plan is never adequately explained.

Plus, if Tris is so valuable to David, and he's been monitoring her for years, why didn't he ever intervene during the many times was captured or nearly killed in the previous films? Would helping her invalidate the experiment? Did he need her to survive on her own, in order to prove she's "pure?" Again, who knows?

• Peter uses his slimy charms to try and enter David's inner circle. David sends him on a mission back to Chicago to wipe the memories of the warring factions. 

Did David give Peter one of his ships to help him accomplish this task? If not, did he somehow climb over the wall— twice— by himself? In the previous films scaling the wall has been seemingly impossible, yet when the script needs Peter to get over it at will, it suddenly becomes about as hard as walking through an unlocked door.

• Again with the mind control! This is now the third Divergent film that's used brain altering drugs as a plot point. Yawn.

• Evelyn releases the amnesia gas into the city, but then changes her mind. As she shuts off the gas, Peter shoots her in the back. She falls to the floor, but minutes later she's up and around and runs off with the rest of the cast, seemingly suffering no ill effects from the gunshot wound. Apparently the bullet must have struck one of those unimportant vertebrae.

• The amnesia gas begins filling the entire city of Chicago. Oddly enough, whenever we see unimportant background characters, the gas billows and fills entire rooms and streets. Whenever the main characters are present though, the gas tightly hugs the ground, enabling them to run and shout without inhaling it.

It's also polite of the gas to be bright red instead of colorless and odorless, so it can be easily avoided.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant is a slow, talky and muddled mess that's for diehard fans of the franchise only. Needlessly splitting the slim story into two films only makes its plot shortcomings all the more obvious. It deserves a C, but I'm taking away an extra half point for chopping the final installment in half, for a final grade of C-.

It Came From The Cineplex: Insurgent

Insurgent (or The Divergent Series: Insurgent as it's also known) was written by Brian Duffield, Mark Bomback and Akiva Goldsman and directed by Robert Schwentke. It's based on the novels by Veronica Roth, and is a sequel to 2014's Divergent.

Of the three screenwriters, Akiva Goldsman is the most recognizable name. Over the years he's written Batman Forever (Oy!), Batman & Robin (Double Oy!), Lost In Space (Oy Infinity!), Starsky & Hutch, I, Robot, Constantine, The Da Vinci Code, I Am Legend, Jonah Hex, Paranormal Activity 2, 3 and 4, Lone Survivor and A Winter's Tale, all of which range from meh to terrifically awful. Yet he also wrote A Beautiful Mind, which won an Oscar. I guess the lesson here is that anyone can hit a homer if they swing at the ball enough times.

Schwentke previously directed Flightplan (meh), The Time Traveler's Wife (meh), RED (OK) and R.I.P.D. (OK).

I freely admit I haven't read any of the Divergent books, and was not a fan of the first movie. It felt like nothing more than a lukewarm rehash of The Hunger Games, complete with the same post-apocalyptic setting, the same female protagonist/audience surrogate, the same "rebels vs. the evil government" story line, and even a precise recreation of the Reaping ceremony. 

Even worse than the rampant unoriginality was the lack of stakes. In The Hunger Games, teens are forced to fight one another in gladiatorial combat for their very lives. Here the teens are made to... um, take an aptitude test and work in one of five predetermined fields. How horrible!

This film fares slightly better than the first though, ramping up the action quite a bit as it pits the various factions against one another for control. I could have done without all the tedious scenes of simulated realities though. Same with the "Secret Box" McGuffin that we've never seen or heard of before, that somehow holds the power to save or destroy the world.

The series could also do with much less of the Peter character. He switches allegiances so many times that I finally gave up trying to remember who's side he was on. Naturally since he's the most annoying person in the film, he'll never be killed off and we'll be forced to watch him switch sides all the way to the bitter end.

Two of the series' major villains are killed off in this installment, which seems like an odd thing to do this early. Now who's going to stand in Tris' way? They're gonna have to introduce some new villains, stat!

Lastly, this is one of those trilogies that's been dragged out into a quadrology, so the studio can make an extra hundred million bucks. So brace yourselves— we've still got two more films to go.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:

Picking up right where the previous film left off, Eric (played by Jai Courtney), the leader of the mind controlled Dauntless army, searches through the wreckage of the Abnegation Faction for the Hellraiser Puzzle Box, er, I mean the Divergent Box, that contains  the symbols of all five Factions. He finds it and takes it to Erudite leader Jeanine (played by Kate Winslet). Jeanine believes the box, which we've never seen or heard about before, contains a message from the city's founders that will tell her how to end the scourge of Divergents, who frankly only seem to be a problem because she says they are. Oh, and for some reason the box can only be opened by a Divergent, so she orders them all to be hunted down and brought to her, which I'm sure wasn't supposed to be a Biblical allusion. And with that, we now have our plot.

Tris (played by Shailene Woodley), Four (played by Theo James), Peter (played by Miles Teller) and Caleb hide out in the Amity commune. Tris, as you'll recall, is the heroine of the story and one of the dreaded Divergents. Oh, and she's also trying to overthrow the evil Faction System. Four is her boyfriend and fellow rebel, who got his ridiculous name because he has four fears or something. Caleb is Tris' useless brother, and Peter is the movie's Designated Asshole™— a character who hinders the hero's efforts for no other reason than because the script says so.

Jeanine tracks them to Amity, but Tris, Four and Caleb escape just in time, jumping aboard one of the ubiquitous trains that service this world. On board the train they just happen to meet a group of Factionless, people who don't fit into any of the Five Factions and have been banished from the city. Tris and Co. are about to be killed until Four reveals his true name just happens to be Tobias Eaton, which seems to mean something to the Factionless. 

The Factionless take the trio to their leader, who just happens to be Four's mother, the preposterously namedEvelyn Johnson-Eaton (played by an unrecognizable Naomi Watts). Evelyn was supposedly dead but apparently got better. She suggests that Dauntless join the Factionless to overthrow the evil Jeanine and the Erudite Faction. Apparently Evelyn forgot that Jeanine had Dauntless under mind control in the previous film.

Tris and Four get the hell out of there, but Caleb goes off to rejoin Erudite, which I'm sure won't come back to bite them in the ass later. Tris and Four go to Candor, where they're given truth serum and questioned about things we already know in an effort to pad out the run time. Dauntless, led by Eric, then attacks Candor, shooting everyone (including Tris) with mind controlling squibs that can't be removed. Four executes Eric, which seems an odd thing to do, since we still have two more movies to go.

Meanwhile, Peter has joined Erudite, helping Jeanine as she burns through Divergent subjects as she tries to get them to open the Hellraiser box. Jeanine believes Tris can open it, and Peter suggests killing off her comrades to force her out of hiding. Jeanine then uses the mind control squibs to do just that, and Tris turns herself in to Erudite to stop the killing. Four follows her, but is captured and imprisoned.

Jeanine hooks Tris up to a virtual reality simulator in order to open this all-important box. She opens four of the box's seals, but collapses from exhaustion and dies before she gets to the fifth. Jeanine is furious that she's once again been denied a peek into this amazing box. Peter wheels Tris' body out of the simulation room, and reveals that she isn't really dead, and he's switched sides again or something. They free Four from his cell, and he and Tris go back to the sim room so she can finally open the box.

She does so, and the message inside is finally revealed. A hologram of a woman explains that the walled city of Chicago and the whole Faction System is all one giant experiment, and that Divergents are the result. The world outside the wall is waiting for the Divergents to return. None of this makes the least bit of sense, but the characters all seem to buy it.

Jeanine realizes the message will undo the Faction System, and orders it buried. Just then, Evelyn and the Factionless enter, and arrest Jeanine. Evelyn shoots and kills Jeanine, which again seems odd, as there are still two movies to go.

Tris, Four and apparently everyone in the city head for whatever lies beyond the wall. To be continued...

Thoughts:

• I really wish author Veronica Roth would have used normal human words for the various Factions. OK, I know that Candor means "honesty," and Dauntless means "brave," but who the hell knows what "Abnegation" means without looking it up? And isn't "Amity" one of those door to door businesses like Avon?

Every time they mention the Faction names, I have to stop and think about what they mean, which draws my attention away from the story (such as it is). Just call them Honesty, Bravery, Sacrifice, Smarts and Peace and stop trying to impress everyone with the fact that you own a thesaurus.

• Do you like that cool topsy turvy poster? I have to admit it's a striking design. Tris looks just like Trinity in The Matrix, firing away as she falls hundreds of feet through the air. Too bad nothing even remotely like that happens anywhere in the film though.

• I was fascinated by the "double train" in the film, which consisted of two sets of boxcars, side by side, pulled by one engine on parallel tracks. I wonder if that would work in real life?

• I asked this question in my review of the first film, but it bears repeating. We're told the Faction system has been in place for at least two hundred years. So why is Chicago still filled with the ruins of bombed-out buildings? They couldn't have rebuilt the place in two hundred years? What the hell have they been doing all this time? Maybe they should have had a Construction Faction.

The only building in the entire city that appears to be new is the massive Erudite tower. Maybe it used up all the limited resources?

• Jeanine orders her Dauntless troops to infiltrate the Factionless compound and shoot them all with tiny implants. These implants can completely control a person's mind and body.

Jeanine uses the implants to cause several of the Factioneless to walk off a high ledge and kill themselves, knowing Tris will turn herself in to stop the "suicides."

If the implants have that much control over a person, why doesn't Jeanine just use the one in Tris's shoulder to force her to march straight to her headquarters? Why all the "killing innocents" drama?

UPDATE: I've been informed that the implants don't work on Divergents like Tris. So that explains that. They might want to clarify such things a bit more though.

• Get used to this image, because you'll be seeing it over and over and over in the film. Apparently the director reeeeeaally likes to see people crash through glass. Tris bursts through numerous windows and glass walls during her simulation, and several of the simulated people even shatter and fly apart!

• Take one part Hellraiser Puzzle Cube, one part The Fifth Element Stones, mix thoroughly and you'll have the Divergent Box. Seriously, look at that thing! It looks almost exactly like the Hellraiser Cube, with the addition of a few blue LEDs.

• The whole "Mystery Box" thing makes absolutely no sense to me. Follow me here. The Faction System was put into place two hundred years ago, in an effort to keep the peace after a devastating war. Jeanine believes the Box contains a message that's vital to the continued survival of the city. But for some reason, only a Divergent can open the box. You know, Divergents— the people who share the traits of all the various Factions, who are considered a threat to the System and are to be killed on sight?

Why the hell would a message that can save and protect the System need a wanted outlaw in order to open it? That's like a doctor injecting you with polio to cure your flu.

And if the message in the Box is so important to the continuation of the species, why make it so hard to open? Why does Tris have to endure and pass five painful simulated tests? Wouldn't it make much more sense if she just walked up to it, placed her hand on top and watched it pop open?

It doesn't make any more sense once the Box is finally opened, either. The message states that the City and the Faction System was created as an experiment, in order to produce Divergents. I think they're implying that Divergents are being created through selective breeding or something like that, but I'm not sure. And these Divergents, who posses traits of all five Factions, are somehow the key to survival, but only outside the Walls of the city.

If you understand any of that, congratulations!

• Once again we see a futuristic civilization with tons of high tech devices, but terrible looking holograms and video screens with what appears to be fifty lines of resolution. This is an old, old trope that happens in virtually every sci-fi film.

• What a difference a dye job makes! I honest to god didn't recognize Naomi Watts in the film until I saw her name in the credits.

• At the end of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (the second one, for those of you keeping score), I noted that Katniss and her little rebellion had their work cut out for them. Their various backward Districts had 1930s Dust Bowl technology and were going up against the futuristic, high-tech Capital.

Then in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (the third one), we were introduced to the previously unmentioned District 13, which was fully stockpiled with weapons, ammunition and thousands of highly trained soldiers. It was obvious that the writer pulled this particular revelation striaght out of her ass, so the Rebellion would have an equal chance against the Capital.

The exact same thing happens here. Most of the Factions look to be pretty low tech (especially Amity), and wouldn't stand a chance against the futuristic Erudite Class and their mind controlled Dauntless army. That's why the heroes just happen to meet up with the Factionless Clan, that just happens to have a well-stocked armory and thousands of willing rebel soldiers. What a coincidence!

Insurgent is a little better than its predecessor, but ultimately the stakes just aren't high enough to generate much concern for all the convoluted goings-on. I give it a B.

"Divergent" Just Got A Little More Divergent

Right on schedule! To absolutely no one's surprise, this week Lionsgate Studios announced they're splitting the third Divergent movie into two parts. Exactly like the Harry Potter, Twilight, Fast And Furious, Hunger Games and Hobbit franchises.

Because why make just three movies like a chump when you can drag out the story into four parts and rake in another half billion dollars? Who cares if there's enough material for another installment? Artistic integrity, schmarschmistic schminschmegrity. There's no doubt in my mind that they'd make thirty Divergent movies if they could.

Super Cynicism powers, Activate!

It Came From The Cineplex: Divergent

Divergent was directed by Neil Burger (The Illusionist) and written by Evan Daughtery and Vanessa Taylor. It's based on the young adult novel by Veronica Roth.

Another week, another teen romance set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world. Try as I might, it's impossible to judge this film without comparing it to others in the genre such as The Host, The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games. In follows the established Hunger Games template in particular almost to the letter. You've the same star-crossed young lovers, you've got the Reaping, er, I mean the Choosing Ceremony, you've got the same intense training pitting teen against teen, you've got a small group of rebels trying to overthrow the oppressive government...  

Heck, both films were even released by the same studio, Lionsgate.

Perhaps a better name for the film would have been Derivative.

CLASS DIVIDED SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Plot:
In a futuristic post-war Chicago, the population is divided into five Factions: Abnegation (selfless public servants), Amity (peaceful farmers), Candor (truthful public defenders), Erudite (intelligent and educated researchers) and Dauntless (law enforcers). Whoever named these factions obviously owns a thesaurus.

When a citizen turns sixteen, they're given a test and sorted into a particular Faction. Beatrice Prior was born into the Abnegation Faction. Since she's the hero of the story, naturally when she takes the test she finds she's a Divergent— an anomaly who has traits of ALL the Factions.

The government shuns and exiles Divergents, fearing they'll upset the delicate balance of Society. Beatrice hides her test results and chooses the Dauntless faction, because they're kewl. She renames herself Tris and trains with them for several months, slowly becoming one of them.

Eventually the Erudite Faction use mind control devices on the Dauntless army and uses them to stage a coup against Abnegation for control of the government. The mind control device doesn't work on Divergents, so it's up to Tris to save the City.

Thoughts:
• Oy, another young adult love story that takes place in a futuristic dystopia. And an incredibly specific one at that.

One thing they never bother to explain in these types of stories: How the hell do these worlds come to be? Why would anyone ever agree to live in such cockamamie societies?

Why would the population go along with splitting into five highly specialized factions? Why would a citizenry that outnumbers their enforcers willingly sacrifice two of their children every year? Why would anyone agree to have a death clock implanted in their forearm?

I get that the authors use these societies to examine facets of our own, but they never tell us how these far-fetched systems started up in the first place. That's the story I want to see.

• I can see why the Divergent series is so popular, as it ties in perfectly with the typical teen's feelings of non-conformity, isolation and rebellion.

The hero exists in a world where everyone is forced to conform to society's rigid rules. But she's special and doesn't fit in anywhere. Why, she's just like every teen in the audience! They don't fit in either!

• During Tris' opening expository info dump, she says that the Five Faction System has preserved the peace for decades. Not ten minutes later we see that there's friction between at least two of the factions, one of which (Erudite) wants to overthrow the other (Abnegation) and run the government. So much for the peaceful Faction System!

• Along these same lines, some people don't conform to any of the of the five groups and are known as the Factionless (wouldn't that technically make them yet another Faction?). They're shunned by society and have to eke out a living digging through garbage, living in alleys and relying on handouts-- within the walls of the city.

Why the hell would such a rigidly hierarchal society allow the Factionless to live inside the city walls? Why wouldn't they kick them out and let them fend for themselves in the wilderness?

• Speaking of the Factions, it seems like they left out a few. Wouldn't you need a Manufacturing Faction to produce tangible goods? Somebody's gotta make the clothing, furniture and vehicles the people need, but we never see any factories. How about a Merchant Faction to sell the various goods? I'd think they'd need a Medical Faction as well, to treat people when they're sick. What about a Janitorial/Maintenance Faction? Someone has to haul away the trash and fix things when they break down. You'd need an Entertainment Faction as well, to keep the population distracted so they don't think about rebelling.

I suppose you could argue that some of these might be covered by the existing Factions, but I'm skeptical. Erudite would have the smarts to be doctors, but probably wouldn't have much of a bedside manner. Abnegation have the right attitude to be healers, but they live and dress like the Amish and probably don't know much about CAT scans. And so on.

• Just to make sure everyone knows their place in this society, all members of each Faction are forced to wear color-coded clothing. Just like the Power Rangers, or the audience on Tattletales. In fact, during the Reaping, er, Choosing Ceremony, the wide shots of the audience, segregated by Faction and color, looked very much like that relic of the 1970s.

For the record Abnegation always wears grey, Amity wears red and orange clothing, Candor wears white, Erudite wears blue and Dauntless wears black.
 
• One thing the filmmakers did right-- the film takes place in the indeterminate future. No exact date is ever given. Good. 

As regular readers of my blog know by now, one of my pet peeves is when a sci-fi movie presents us with a radically altered society full of highly advanced technology, then places it in the unimaginably far off year of 2021.

When dealing with futuristic dates, vague is the way to go.

• During the daytime, post-war Chicago appears to be a modern city with technology ahead of our own. At night though the city seems to be completely dark. So they have stun guns, mind control and machines that can read and display your thoughts on a screen, but apparently no light bulbs. Got it.

Is there a reason why all the lights are shut off at night? Some kind of curfew? Is there not enough juice to power the lights as well as the gigantic electrified fence that surrounds the city?

• One of the characteristics of the Abnegation Faction is that they have no vanity. To ensure they abide by this trait, the use of mirrors is heavily restricted. When Tris is getting ready for the Reaping, er, Choosing Ceremony, her mother only allows her a brief glance into the family's sole mirror. It's even hidden behind a special sliding panel!

If mirrors are so verboten to this Faction, why do they have one in their house in the first place? Yeah, it's normally hidden, but if they're so unconcerned about how they look to the world, why have one at all?  

• In this society, when a child reaches the age of sixteen they're required to take an aptitude test to decide which Faction is best for them. But they don't have to adhere to the test results. During the Reaping, er, Sorting Hat, er, I mean Choosing Ceremony they're allowed to pick whatever Faction they want.

If you can choose any Faction, then what the hell's the point of the test? It seems like a big waste of time if you can willingly override it. Is the test meant to identify and weed out Divergents? Apparently it's none of our concern, as this is never addressed.

• One last thing about the Reaping, er, Choosing Ceremony. The initiates are told that they can choose to join any of the five Factions, but once they choose, that's it-- they're in for life. No backsies or do-overs. 

Would you want to have to live with such a permanent decision your dumb sixteen year old self made? That's even worse than our system, in which we have to live with the career choices we made at age eighteen.

• By the way, some or all of these nitpicky questions I have may have been answered in the novel, which I haven't read. Too bad! This is the movie! If I have to read the book to understand what's happening in the film, then the screenwriters failed badly.

• No one ever says for sure, but I'm guessing Tris and her brother Caleb are twins, since they both choose their Factions on the same day.

• Tris was born into the Abnegation Faction, and her parents of course hope she'll choose to stay there. She ends up choosing Dauntless, which acts as the city's police force and army.

At first I wondered why someone from such a peaceful and benevolent Faction would choose one so violent and warlike. It seems like Dauntless would be a completely alien way of life to her. Then I figured it out--  it's so they could fill the run time with some of that Hunger Games kid vs. kid battle action! All the other Factions are filled with people who sit around and talk or farm all day. Dauntless was the only one that would feature anything even remotely exciting.

• Tris' love interest in the film is the leader of Dauntless, whose name is Four. Yep, I said Four. His real name is Tobias Eaton, but he's known as Four because of his four fears. Cause you know, everyone has just four specific fears, right? Right?

• During the Dauntless War Games, they use guns with live ammo. Tris is initially apprehensive about using such weapons on her fellow Factioners, until her sadistic instructor Eric demonstrates that the guns are perfectly safe and fire cartridges that simulates the pain of a bullet hit, but not the damage.

Maybe so, but I'd hardly call them harmless. These cartridges appears to be at least three to four inches long. If you caught one in the eye you might as well toss your Viewmaster in the trash.

• Near the end of the film Tris and Four rebel against their mind controlled brethren. There's a big shootout between Four and Eric, his former friend. We see several closeups of Four and Eric shooting at one another. However when they cut to a wide shot, hilariously we see they're crouched ten feet apart at the most.

It looks exactly like a scene from one of the Naked Gun movies.

• In the third act we find out that Erudite is plotting to overthrow the Agnegation Faction for control of the government. They inject everyone in the Dauntless Faction with a thought control device that turns them all into mindless drones that follow orders without question.

This whole mind control plot point is pulled right out of the author's ass. It literally comes out of nowhere, as the audience had no idea such a thing was even a possibility in this world. Bad form, movie!

Additionally, the mind control widget doesn't work on Tris or Four because they're Divergents. Well that was certainly convenient! If that hadn't happened Erudite's coup would have gone off without a hitch!

• Since everyone and their dog writes nothing but trilogies these days, and studios are desperate for successful film franchises, this is of course the first of three planned films. So you know what that means-- it doesn't have a proper ending! They might as well have thrown up a title card that said, "Continued Next Year!"

• At the very end of the film, the rebels hop onboard an L train and ride it through the Wall and outside the city with no trouble. 

First of all, where's the security on the Wall? Why is it possible to ride right through it? Does the Wall only work one way? It keeps people from getting in, but you can freely walk out any old time you feel like it? 

Second, as my pal KW Monster pointed out, what's the deal with these trains? All through the film the Dauntless gang jumps on and off them while they're moving. In fact I don't think we ever see them stop. Is anyone driving them, or are they automated? And if you want to ride one, do you have to risk your life by leaping on as it speeds by?

Divergent is yet another young adult love story set in a dystopian society, that's just too derivative for its own good. I give it a B-.