Tag Archives: Insurgent

Film Review: INSURGENT

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This past week I got the opportunity to catch an advance screening of Insurgent, the sequel to last year’s action-packed YA blockbuster Divergent. I’ll be honest, I was on the fence about this one. While I was pleasantly surprised by the first movie, the trailers for the second left me scratching my head. The entire first teaser appeared to be either a dream sequence or a fearscape (one of the drug-induced hallucinations characters in the franchise’s dystopian Chicago face to prove their bravery) — is it a red flag when a movie has to advertise using a scene that has nothing to do with the actual plot? — and the full trailer strongly hinted that the adaptation would be deviating in a big way from the book.

Box? What box? The box isn’t in the book. What’s in the box? (Anyone else unable to read that question in anything other than the traumatized voice of Brad Pitt? Just me?)

But since the first film had exceeded my trailer-based expectations, and since the second book was my favorite of the series, I went into Insurgent with an open mind and cautious hope.

Insurgent opens shortly after Divergent leaves off. Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Caleb (Ansel Elgort), and Peter (Miles Teller) have sought refuge in the peaceful Amity compound outside the city limits while they try to determine their next move. Meanwhile, Jeanine (Kate Winslet), head of the Erudite faction, has gotten her hands on the aforementioned Mysterious Box, and is obsessed with finding a Divergent who can open it. Hence Eric (Jai Courtney) is leading a group of Dauntless soldiers around attempting to round up Tris and her ragtag group of rebels.

Obviously, chaos ensues. And continues to ensue for the entirety of Insurgent’s 2-hour running time. Which, if you read the book, is about what you’d expect from its adaptation; neither version of the story is short on action sequences.

However, I did take some issue with the way the action unfolded. In both the book series and the movies, Tris becomes a far more competent soldier and leader in the second installment. But while the book version of Tris also develops a more mature and measured way of thinking and problem solving, even if it means making hard decisions, the movie version did away with that pesky nuance, instead opting to have her lash out violently any time she was placed in a tough situation or in a conversation with someone she didn’t like. This did lead to some fun fight scenes, and yes, I suppose one could argue that it made Tris “strong,” but for me, I would’ve liked a bit more strength of character and a bit less strength of temper and fists.

As a sidebar, it was kinda odd seeing Shailene Woodley in scenes opposite literally all of her previous YA movie love interests. I mean. She’s had a really good past few years professionally, but it’s starting to get weird.

TJ: Divergent is the best.
MT: SAY THAT TO MY FACE.
TJ: I just did. I punch people A LOT in these movies. What did you do in Spectacular Now? Cry?
MT: Not as much as SOME people.
AE: Uh, guys? I’m right here.
TJ: I TAKE MY SHIRT OFF TOO.
AE: I took mine off in Fault In Our Stars. AND my leg.
MT: OH SNAP.
Shailene Woodley: Hate to break this up, but we’re supposed to be filming an awkward scene with all four of us now, okay? Okay.

As far as acting goes, Insurgent boasts a lot of heavy hitters in the cast, but I felt that a lot of them failed to deliver. While I was surprised by how well both Shailene Woodley and Theo James handled their roles in the first movie (despite my complete inability to buy him as an 18-year-old), in this one, they were lacking for me. Naomi Watts, whom I usually like, was surprisingly unconvincing as [highlight for minor spoiler: Four’s presumed-dead mom — who, despite the fact that she is 16 years Theo James’ senior in real life, only looks about 5 years older on-screen], and Kate Winslet, whom I love and adore, had such an odd over-the-top role to play that even her innate Kate Winslet-ness had trouble saving it. I also had trouble connecting with Ansel Elgort’s character, but I’m not sure that’s entirely his fault, as Caleb isn’t exactly Mr. Personality in the books either. However Miles Teller was a wonderfully pleasant surprise, stealing every scene he was in, and Jai Courtney was a sufficiently menacing baddie. So a bit of a mixed bag, for me.

There were also, as I mentioned before, tons of plot changes, both big and small. As often happens in movie adaptations of books with large casts, many characters’ roles were truncated, given to a different character, or eliminated altogether. Subplots were altered and rearranged. And of course, the Mysterious not-in-the-book Box is the central point around which the entire movie’s plot rotates.

While I am not a book purist when it comes to film adaptations — I mean, I thought the Hobbit trilogy was great fun, fanfictiony and ridiculous though it was — I do wish that the filmmakers had taken a little more care to make their Big Changes actually make sense. The logic behind the Mysterious Box is frail at best, a theme that carries through a lot of the narrative choices in the movie.

Characters fight to the death over a misunderstanding that is later cleared up with a single sentence. Characters are shown in no-hope-of-escape scenarios in one scene and then happy as a clam back at their home base in the next, with no explanation how they got there. Bad guys hatch elaborate plots, then they unfold using set pieces put in place before the plot was hatched.

Basically, abandon hope, all ye who seek logic here.

However I don’t want to come across as a big ol’ downer telling you to avoid this movie at all costs. There are some great fight sequences, and anyone hoping to see Shailene Woodley kicking some serious bad-guy booty will be over the moon. There are some huge — albeit a bit video gamey — nifty CGI sequences. There is some surprisingly great comic relief in the form of Miles Teller, whose character I absolutely loathed in the book but kind of adored in the movie. And if Tris and Four (whose shipper name I don’t know, but if it’s anything other than FourTris, which would clearly be pronounced fortress, I quit) are your jam, then you’re in for a treat, as the romance is definitely amped up from the book.

Ultimately, my thoughts on this movie are that if you’re okay with the movie being its own, separate-from-the-book thing, or if you’re there for the action, for the romance, for the high-stakes adrenaline-pumping pace, or for the futuristic dystopian setting, you’ll probably really enjoy it.

If you’re more about tight storytelling and source material faithfulness, this may not be the film for you — or you just need to go in knowing not to place too high a value on those things.

No matter what, if you decide to check out Insurgent at the theater, I hope you have fun, and I’d love to know your thoughts!

Check out the video below for the Drive Through Movie Review Clint Redwine and I filmed after exiting the theater, in which I say “like” way too much, coin the term “Bovine Dystopia,” and do a bad impression of Caleb running. You’re welcome, Internet.

Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth (@VeronicaRoth @harperteen)

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Wow. Okay. I just finished Insurgent, the highly anticipated second book in Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy, and I’ve got to say…it’s good. It’s really good. In my opinion, better than Divergent. Let me try to get my thoughts in order and explain why.

The Story 

Insurgent picks up right where Divergent ends: on a train after the world has come crashing down around protagonist Tris Prior. The factions have turned on each other, and have taken massive casualties on all sides. Tris herself is reeling from the deaths of several close friends and family members, one of which was at her hands.

Tris and her boyfriend Tobias, a.k.a. “Four,” flee to the Amity headquarters, hoping to take refuge among the peaceful. But it quickly becomes clear that Amity and Dauntless don’t mix well.

As Tris, Four and their ragtag band of allies and enemies ping-pong around the different factions, a war breaks out. Sides are taken, lives are lost, and Tris and Four are right in the middle.

But Tris’ main concern isn’t with picking sides in the war. She just wants to know why they’re fighting a war in the first place.

My Thoughts

Like Divergent, Insurgent is a mile-a-minute roller coaster of a book. There is tons of edge-of-your-seat action and suspense that starts near the beginning of the book and doesn’t stop until the last page.

However, Insurgent takes what Divergent had going for it and takes it to a new level. The stakes are higher, the action is grander, and the payoff is bigger. In the first book, we watch as Tris discovers her inner Dauntless. She performs a lot of stunts that, from my boring-adult perspective, are reckless and stupid, and serve no purpose. However, that recklessness and fearlessness actually comes in handy in Insurgent, where her goals are far loftier than just making it into a horribly superficial faction and impressing a boy.

The love story between Tris and Four is definitely present throughout the book, but it’s not the main focus. It develops around the big events surrounding the characters, and does not usurp them, which is good. They’re both concerned with saving the world, and both realize that’s more important than their relationship drama. A good realization to have, especially when you remember that they are still both teenagers.

There are a lot of deaths in Insurgent. It’s like Deathly Hallows and Mockingjay all over again. No one is safe. On the one hand, I hate when authors kill off good characters (especially when the nasty ones survive), because it hurts my little reader feelings. On the other hand, it really helps me not to become complacent as a reader when I realize that any of these characters could die at any time. There’s not that feeling of, “well, this situation kinda sucks, but you know it’ll be okay because there’s no way she’d kill off that character.” Nope, she would kill off that character. She proved it in Divergent, and it’s even more prevalent in Insurgent.

As for Tris herself, I liked her a lot more in this book. She grew up a lot. She made more mature decisions, causing me to see for the first time that she really may have some aptitude for Abnegation (something I didn’t see at all in the first book). She still did some stupid things and made some poor choices, but it was nice to generally see her acting more reasonably and not just out of spite or anger or recklessness.

I also liked that she spent the entire book dealing with the consequences of her actions in the first book. I was concerned she would recover too quickly from the events in Divergent, but she dealt with them throughout the book. She had psychological trauma and battle scars. It made her seem a lot more real.

And remember all those questions I had about Divergent? How a lot of things weren’t explained and didn’t make sense and I hoped they would be explained in the next book? Well, they were. I didn’t even realize that we were going to get answers to those questions until I read the last chapter, and then boom, there they were. Not 100%, because this is book #2 in a trilogy and having all my questions answered would be an unreasonable expectation. But they were addressed, the answers were heavily hinted at, and I now have little doubt that we’ll get much more satisfying explanations in book #3.

All in all, I thought Insurgent was a great follow-up to Divergent. It was more thrilling, more mature, and generally more satisfying. I’m excited to see where it goes in what is sure to be an explosive finale.

Content Guide: Contains violence and numerous deaths, and mild sexual content.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (4/30)

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by BookJourney. It’s a great way to plan your reading week and see what others are reading!

On my plate for this week:

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I know, this was on my list last week. I know, I still haven’t finished. I know, I’m still in essentially the same part of the book. I need to just plow through to the end. I’ll probably be glad I did.

Timepiece by Myra McEntire. Really excited about this one, as I loved the first book in the series, Hourglass. You can read my Hourglass review here, or you could probably just scroll down. I mean, it was my most recent post. So far I am really enjoying experiencing this world through Kaleb’s eyes.

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen. I received this one in my goody box from Scholastic, and I’m super-stoked about it. I’ve heard nothing but good things.

And, last but not least….

Insurgent by Veronica Roth. The wait is finally over! This will arrive at my doorstep sometime on Tuesday (probably around dinnertime, as we are notoriously late on our UPS guy’s route). Super-psyched to find out what Tris and Four have planned after the über-craziness that was the end of Divergent. If I’m being realistic with myself, I probably won’t sleep much on Tuesday night.

There’s another couple I’d like to squeeze in if I have time, but really, four (well, 3.5-ish since I’m already nearly finished with one of them and partway through the next) books is probably plenty for me to be tackling this week.

That’s it for me this week, unless I am way more on top of my game than usual. Happy reading!