We’re going to talk a lot about this movie and the series interchangeably in this review. That’s bad form, but it’s appropriate here for two reasons — one, The Divergent Series’ movies are so uniform and so uniformly flawed that it’s difficult to distinguish between them in the first place, and second, this movie absolutely doesn’t stand on its own as a narrative, and viewers who haven’t seen the first two movies will be completely lost watching it. So, those movies also come into play. Photos courtesy Summit Entertainment.
The Divergent Series was doomed from the get-go when they cast cardboard cut-outs Shailene Woodley and Theo James in the lead roles, and despite respected veterans Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts and Jeff Daniels joining the cast in each subsequent installment, it was always clear they were only there to cash a check. Word got out that the first movie was kind of a Hunger Games ripoff, and it was such a massive Hunger Games ripoff on both a high conceptual level and low execution level that that’s all anyone saw it as. The creative bankruptcy only got worse in the second one, and this third one feels like it was produced on autopilot by the same automaton that made Insurgent. No one really gave this series a chance, and it never really merited one.
Looking back on the series with one more movie to go, it’s impossible to ignore how bad these movies are in the theater, but also hard to be angry. You kind of have to just shake your head in wonder.
The Divergent Series: Allegiant follows Tris Prior (Woodley) and her merry band, Four Eaton (James), Caleb Prior (Ansel Elgort), Christina (Zoë Kravitz) and Peter Hayes (Miles Teller) beyond the wall surrounding Chicago. After helping to depose Jeanine Matthews (Winslet) in the previous movies, Eaton’s mother, Evelyn (Watts) has taken power, and has sent her soldiers after the group for stupid reasons that don’t matter. Eventually, the heroes run far enough to discover the facility behind the Chicago enclosure and begin to unravel the mystery of their entire lives. It goes south, and the man in charge, David (Daniels), tries to kill everyone, once again for stupid reasons.
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