Check out my fiction - http://www.jaletac.com
Check out my science fiction series - The Fall of the Altairan Empire

Monday, September 14, 2015

Movie Review - Divergent and Divergent: Insurrection

The books these movies are based on have been making noise in my online circles so I decided to see the movies. It also helped that they are now on Netflix.

The posters and book covers led me to believe these were science fiction, as in a high-tech future or another world. I probably should have paid more attention to the descriptions. These are futuristic Earth where something horrible has happened and most everyone is dead and the society that is left is repressive and bleak. And the main characters are teenagers who have to decide their entire life RIGHT NOW. And the whole course of human history depends on one teenage girl, if she can get over her angst.

Yeah, been there, done that, way too often lately. Is anyone else tired of depressing, bleak, angsty teen movies that are only redeemed by the cool tech gadgets they invent for the storyline?

It wasn't quite that bad. I did enjoy the first movie. There were a lot of quirky, interesting twists to the society that intrigued me. Until the teen angst kicked into high gear. See the main character sees a really hot guy and of course impressing him becomes her main focus in life. The romance was good in the first movie, though, believable and not overwhelming to the rest of the plot. The villain had me wanting more of her story. I was actually looking forward to the second movie.

Except the second movie devolves into a muddle. The villain is just another megalomaniac who wants power. The hot guy is desperately in love with and totally devoted to the main character even though she gives him absolutely no reason to be that way. In fact, she lies to him and pushes him away to the point where the romance is no longer believable. Either he's an absolute idiot, or there's a lot more to the story than they show in the film.

The plot for the second movie was much too predictable. The ending felt tacked on and not justified. I had almost no emotional involvement with the characters by the end so I didn't care what happened to them anymore.

I know a lot of teen girls who love the movies, though, so to each their own. They weren't my personal favorites. Or even close. But they were watchable, even if the second movie was a disappointment.

Divergent - PG-13 mostly for violence, I give it a B.
Divergent: Insurrection - PG-13, I give it a C.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Keep it clean, keep it nice.