The Divergent Series: Allegiant

The Divergent Games - Scorch Hunger is the ninth instalment of the popular series whereupon, as in the other films, skilled teenagers attempt to break the shackles of an oppressive and separatist society by climbing a wall and joining the resistance. Relationships, integrity and pure physical strength are put to the test in this blockbuster. The characters undergo some testing also. Starring the villain from Far Cry 3, Katniss and Peter.

It’s mid April! The flowers are blooming, the trees are singing, parents are singing because their children are in school again, and cinemas are playing the same 10 awful films as last month because it is not economically viable to run new blockbusters. For someone looking for a movie to watch, it makes life difficult. When your choice is between garbage (Grimsby) and trash (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2), you may as well gouge your eyes out quickly and save yourself two hours of your life. For anyone that may think this is an exaggeration I have a counter argument prepared.

I know what you are thinking. That girl from Sabrina got chubby. Also I would expect you experienced an internal (and quite possible external) groan for two and a half minutes like I did. I don’t think the dictionary has enough synonyms for ‘terrible’ to describe that steaming pile, but awful, dreadful, appalling, horrific, atrocious and ghastly will have to suffice. Regardless a choice must be made, and in this weeks game of Russian roulette for eyeballs, the wheel landed on rubbish.

Strip away the questionable acting, predictable plot events, poorly constructed characters and the fact that you are expected to watch another 2 of these (with another on it’s way), Allegiant remains a pretty bad film. And here you were expecting me to write nice things for a change.

While it is nice to have clarity in a film, perhaps instead of making character roles incredibly obvious to the point of lament it would be sensible to add some to the overall plot. What you will take away from this film is that all bad guys wear white suits (and their goons, rugged vests with popped collars and buzz cut mohawks), and all good guys look like they are fresh from Sunday school, complete with perfect teeth and hair. Simply put Allegiant tries way too hard to make you care about characters, and in doing so will make you not care about them at all. To emphasise this point, shortly into the film one of the main character dies (see picture below). In a good film an audience might feel a tear well up in the corner of their eyes, and perhaps go so far as to release a small exasperation. I saw this death coming though, and instead I pointed at the screen, exclaimed “DEAD” and counted down from 3 (she died on 2). Then, as is becoming quite common in films, all the characters forget about their fallen companion and continue on their merry way.

Even in still frame you can just tell she gon' die.

Before even reaching production this film was already losing points, based solely on its very existence. Firstly this film has been made before. Eight times if you were wondering. Whether it be the Hunger Games series, the Maze Runner series or the preceding two films, Allegiant is more of the same. Protagonist joins rebel group and against all odds overthrows the oppressive government system, and along the way manage to find love against all odds. It is like action film meets teen romance novel; like Twilight meets Die Hard, but with worse acting and more obvious antagonists (which is an impressive feat). The second issue is while the immediate plot of the film is glaringly obvious (climb a wall to see what’s on the other side), the overall plot of the series is lost on anyone smart enough to have avoided watching the first two.

Poor acting, predictable plot, crummy characters. I'm getting bored just writing about it.
3/10 chubby Sabrinas.