“Allegiant”
If you were planning on going to the Fox Run Mall trip and spending ten dollars on a ticket to see The Divergent Series: Allegiant this weekend, save your money for twenty Grill cookies (or even something better).
The film is the third of The Divergent Series which was based on the book trilogy by Veronica Roth. The trilogy consists of “Divergent” (2011), “Insurgent” (2012) and “Allegiant” (2013). The novels were popular during the dystopian fad of novel-to-film adaptations in Hollywood. Today, the trend seems to have died out as The Hunger Games series ended in 2015, and movies such as Allegiant are underperforming.
“The Divergent Series: Allegiant” was the first of a two-part adaptation of the third book of the series. “The Divergent Series: Ascendant,” the second part of the Allegiant adaptation and the final film in the series will be released on June 9, 2017. The director of the first three films in the series, Robert Schewentke, will be replaced by Lee Toland Krieger. As both series are distributed by Lionsgate, the slicing of Roth’s final novel is similar to the splitting of Suzanne Collins’ third book, “The Mockingjay.”
The first two books and films followed an intriguing world-within-a-world conundrum story in the city of Chicago. The first movie had fans hooked with conflict within a society defined by five different factions: Abnegation, for the selfless; Amity, for the peaceful; Candor, for the honest; Dauntless, for the brave; and Erudite, for the intellectual.
Beatrice Prior, also known as Tris, is born into a strict Abnegation family but transfers to the Dauntless section where she balances her secret of being Divergent, meaning she could never perfectly fit into any faction, and a developing love interest with the mysterious but cute Four. However, the appeal of the franchise wears off as the factions disappear and fans are left saying, “So what?”
The third book received bad reviews for several reasons. First, the author killed off her protagonist in the end. Second, the story lost meaning and left readers bored. Third, the action scenes were predictable. Fourth, the romance aspect died out.
The movie yields the same underwhelming experience. I was bored of the typical fighting scenes and the bad-guy-in-the-sky antagonist. Each scene was predictable or felt like a repeat of the one before. New characters were cliché and lacked the ability to add to the story. Old characters were drawn out and lost their quirky attributes.
Another issue with the film is that it was not advertised well as the first part of a two-part book adaptation. Viewers were left confused as to why Tris didn’t die in the end and why nothing seemed to happen in the two hours they spent watching the screen.
One of the few things Lionsgate did well in producing and distributing the series was picking well-loved actors for the cast. With Shailene Woodley suited up as Tris, Theo James playing her boyfriend Tobias “Four” Eaton, Zoë Kravitz playing Christina Tris’ best friend, Ansel Elgort playing Caleb Prior Tris’ brother and Miles Teller playing Peter Hayes the goofy, trouble-seeking friend the audience was drawn to the series.
Regardless of the impressive cast, the movie overall was uninteresting and not worth watching unless you want to spend ten dollars to fall asleep from boredom. 0.5 stars is generous.