The first two Divergent movies were fine films that fell apart on a storytelling level; but ultimately, they had so much passion infused into what they wanted to be, that they managed to have something actually good. Sure, the only point of them was to be blatant YA-genre ripoffs using every trick in the book to make the film as appealable to the mass audience as possible, but Shailene Woodley tried, and the Neil Burger, and Robert Schwentke tried. Allegiant is the first film where the essence of “tried” has left the movie, and that almost works to it’s advantage. That may sound counterintuitive, but it’s a completely valid point. Allegiant, at first glance is not that bad. It’s pretty bad, but it’s bad in the good kind of way. Schwentke, the director of the last one, almost seems to have just given up on the series. That’s ok though. His sense of direction has seemed to become so tiresome and laughable that the film becomes funny. That tone would have actually worked really well for the series, allowing it to jump into self parody, instead of nobly fizzling out like The Hunger Games did. The whole thing has a manic energy at this point, and Miles Teller’s overly sarcastic and painfully unfunny sensibilities draw everything out of this thin, flaccid material. Divergent could have become something other than a normal, as is YA-genre entry. But then it starts to take itself seriously, and the entire thing goes to hell. There’s not so much to say for story here, but the simplicity of the set up fits the film better here. It’s only when the film notices that it actually is supposed to progress somewhere that it seems to actually do that but without thinking of a logical or interesting place to go. Jeff Daniels stands around looking evil for a good 90 minutes until we are immediately told that he is evil losing all weight that this character could have had. The film however is very serious about this man, so when the audience doesn’t care, the piece just falls apart. It’s not just Jeff Daniels, but that’s just one of many things. As the production starts caring about what happens, the less we can laugh at the movie, and the less we can make anything out of it. Shailene Woodley is a great actress, but she’ll probably write this one off as a contract piece, as will everyone else. Allegiant has finally driven the series into the territory of “bad,” and it’s sad to see this franchise go. Divergent’s chances of being “good” 2014-2016. I give Allegiant a 3.5 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |