INSURGENT
DIRECTOR: Robert Schwentke
CAST: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel Elgort, Kate Winslet, Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Daniel Dae Kim
CLASSIFICATION: 13V
RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes
RATING: ***
PRETTY young things in casual pro clothing, wandering through inventively recycled buildings, built amid a ravaged city enclosed by a very tall wall. Yep, it’s another Young Adult, post- apocalyptic sci-fi action flick set in a city enclosed by a wall.
Veronica Roth’s trilogy of novels is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Chicago, and the third book has a lot of detail explaining the overall context of what the apocalypse was. But, book two is the place-holder between the establishment of characters of the first book and explanations of the third.
That makes this second film light on the plot and detail, and heavy on creating the look so necessary to post-apocalyptic, dystopian films about teenagers. These characters fighting their authoritarian government definitely do not internalise emotion but let it aaaaall hang out in hysterical screaming matches or some brooding when all else fails. This world sees people dress according to social faction and it is a mix of sophisticated technology and home-spun homilies.
Insurgent dives right into its story and never lets up, forgoing the set-up of the first film to simply make Woodley run for her life. She is Tris Prior, the heroine of the trilogy who displayed traits of all the personality-related factions which make up her home.
She is pursued by Jeanine Matthews (Winslet) for what turns out to be a very specific reason related to her divergent state.
The rules of this particular dystopian world were explained last year in Divergent, so audiences are expected to keep up as she runs from Jeanine, various factions and basically anyone who believes divergents are bad. Which seems to be most of the people left in the city.
James, as Four, doesn’t have to do much more than glue his gorgeous self to Tris’s side and other than Winslet getting to be the bad blonde for a change, screen veterans like her and Spencer and Watts coast along.
Woodley sheds the long locks and goes all angsty action hero, but doesn’t really get to stretch herself in the acting stakes. Her dialogue is of the rather trite “you have to trust me” variety. Or how about “everyone who loves me ends up dead”, or words to that effect.
The special effects in the second film are more spectacular than that of the first, and there are a lot of special effects. There’s a magic box that is very pretty, which, miraculously, is retrieved from Tris’s parents home and is the source of all sorts of trouble for her, but don’t go looking for logical plot dumps or an actual explanation of what is going on.
That is going to happen in the third film.
If you liked Maze Runner or City of Ember, you will like this.
Talented Woodley embodies Insurgent’s Tris Prior
Apparently, Shailene Woodley was considered for the Katniss Everdeen role in The Hunger Games, but losing out to Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t all bad, since she got to do Divergent’s Tris Prior.
While her turn as Tris in Insurgent didn’t exactly stretch her considerable acting skills, Woodley has actually done a lot of really good stuff in her short 23 years. She has been acting since she was five years old, mostly in commercials and US TV shows.
Though she made her screen debut in the 1999 tv film Replacing Dad, Woodley got her big break in Alexander Payne’s Oscar- nominated The Descendants (2011).
Her performance as Alexandra King, sulky teenage daughter to George Clooney’s character, garnered critical acclaim, an Independent Spirit Award, the 2012 MTV Movie Awards Breakthrough Performance Award as well as a Golden Globe nomination.
Suddenly, she was the girl to watch and two years later her performance as Aimee Finecky in the indie coming-of-age film
The Spectacular Now was again critically acclaimed. She won the Special Jury Award for Acting at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was again nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.
The next year she won at The Hollywood Film Awards for Hollywood Breakout Performance for playing Hazel in the heart-wrenching Fault in Our Stars.
She was first choice to play Tris Prior, but had to be persuaded by Lawrence to tackle the multiple film role – her experience of being locked into a five season contract for ABC’s The Secret Life of Teenagers made her rather wary of restrictive contracts.
In real life, now 23, Woodley is considered to be a lot like Tris Prior is described in the books – strong-willed, opinionated and not fitting into a pre-determined category.
She sports a utilitarian fashion sense and is known for being environmentally conscious and a big believer in hugs. Plus, it isn’t unheard of for Woodley to ditch the stilettoes after the red carpet demands are done, to wander off home barefoot, heels in hand.
We have yet to see her in White Bird in a Blizzard, also shot last year, and though she went so far as to dye her hair red to play Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), her role was cut to place more emphasis on the Gwen Stacy/Peter Parker relationship.
Woodley will reprise her Tris role in The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Part 1 and 2 in 2016 and 2017.
Before then, she is supposed to star with Joseph Gordon Levitt in the Snowden bio-pic which is set for a December release.