Allegiant

I enjoyed the hell out of this film. It had me constantly engaged and interested in the story. I like the conflict between the characters, but glad they didn't make it dramatic. My biggest problem is there are such big ideas in this movie, they needed more time to develop some of them. A few scenes here to flesh out the conflict more. I am pretty sure they didn't do it because they have to follow the currently trend right now, mindless action set pieces with very little story. I appreciate the writers and director trying to accomplish something bigger, but there were still some missing parts. I still enjoyed the movie a lot and appreciate the effort.

The age of the young adult franchises are upon us now more than ever with yet another entry in the 'Divergent' series being released. Maybe it's just me, but I'm growing tired of weak films filled with same old clichés and unoriginal story lines based around the genre of 'young adult sci-fi'. Sure, a lot of people can say the same thing about the overabundance of superhero films, but there's a clear difference in quality. But the bottom line is that I'm just not the audience for these films.

Allegiant directly follows the events from Insurgent after the demise of Kate Winslet's Jeanine character. Naomi Watts reprises her role as Evelyn and pretty much follows the same unfortunate path that Jeanine did as leader of the dystopian Chicago. Four and Tris, played by Shailene Woodley, lead a small group of survivors into the outside world which was teased at the end of the last film. From there, every cliché you can possibly think of, follows. The characters who you think will die, die. The people who you think will be good or bad, end up being good or bad. There is nothing surprising or noteworthy about the film's plot.

The positives do however come from some of the performances. Theo James continues to be a pleasant surprise and does as much as he can with a weak script. He has a definite future in the film business. Woodley is solid as she usually is and so is Jeff Daniels and Naomi Watts. The problem is that the film around them is average at best. The pacing is painfully slow at times and nothing really happens until the final 20 minutes. Of course, it's set up for an unnecessary and unplanned 4th film purely for the reasons of making money, because there could have easily been an ending here. Overall, a weak script and horrible green screen moments end up making a disappointing third entry in the series.

+Music

+Performances from James and others

-Green screen moments

-Pacing

-Nothing original and full of clichés

4.8/10

"The Divergent Series: Allegiant" is another part of this too long and boring franchise. The saga of Tris and Four and their friends is repetitive and predictable, using clichés and special effects. The screenplay is poor and stupid. For example, David is capable to close doors and remotely controls the city; why does he need someone to release the gas in Chicago? The worst is that the story does not end and there will be another sequel to gross more money for the producers. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "A Série Divergente: Convergente" ("The Divergent Series: convergent")

So... Without spoiling the book OR this movie; the movie sucked, the book did not. There is way, way more sci-fi then necessary, and BAD sci-fi that is! It's really poorly done, bad CGI and stuff. And where the story from the books was at times confusing, this was downright dumb and mad no sense. The biggest book-moments were cut out, probably to make room for the bad CGI... I kind of expected it to be bad, 'cause the 2nd one wasn't that good either. It also seems the actors get less and less convincing with each movie. Contrary to the Hunger Games (that also differed from the books somewhat, but functional imho), these don't live up to the books at all. If you read them, don't watch the movies. If you've watched the movies but started liking them less and less, read the books instead! They're worth it!

I'm not a big fan of this franchise, but the first movie was reasonably solid and entertaining. The second was hugely disappointing and actually fairly boring.

As for Allegiant, I think they've somewhat rescued the franchise with this film. It answered a lot of questions and moved the story on. We find out the truth about what a Divergent actually is and the truth about what is the other side of the wall. There is some good action in the movie and it's still feels very much a twilight, hunger games style teen movie. The acting is fairly average for what you would expect.

The overriding feeling I got though is how on earth have they got 4 movies out of this franchise? We haven't come a long way in the story so far yet we've sat through 6 hours of movie time. I don't therefore have high hopes for the 4th and (hopefully) final installment. Large sections of all 3 movies could have been cut out and merged and we could have seen 2 really good 2 hours movies. Instead it will go down as another disappointing franchise spread needlessly over 4 movies. Money...