Allegiant

Rating

Director

Robert Schwentke

Screenplay

Noah Oppenheim, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage (Novel: Veronica Roth)

Length

120 min.

Starring

Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Jeff Daniels, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Keiynan Lonsdale, Daniel Dae Kim, Maggie Q, Bill Skarsgård, Jonny Weston, Nadia Hilker, Andy Bean, Ray Stevenson, Mekhi Phifer

MPAA Rating

PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements, and some partial nudity

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Review

Adapting novels to the big screen is a daunting task, but trying to string out a success can have disastrous results. While there may be more epic failures, few were as expected as the third of four films in the Divergent Series: Allegiant.

Some novels are so dense and complex that adequately transforming them into big screen adventures often results in key details being left on the cutting room floor. Take for example The Lord of Rings trilogy. In order to take the three novels and turn them into only three films, director Peter Jackson had to navigate the novels for logistical hurdles and eliminate those that did not directly feed into the narrative. Thus, fan favorite Tom Bombadil and many others ended up axed from the film.

This has resulted in a series of director or studio decisions to split novels into two to give the final films the chance to breathe. We’ll leave Jackson out of this as he took a single book and turned it into three films for artistic reasons rather than financial ones. Warner Bros. started this particular gambit when it decided to turn J.K. Rowling’s celebrated final Harry Potter novel Deathly Hallows into a two-parter. With a highly lucrative franchise coming to a close, Warner made a business decision that ultimately worked out.

Lionsgate wasn’t nearly as lucky when it tried the same trick with the final Hunger Games film, Mockingjay. The film’s two parts, although quite strong in terms of quality, were met with indifference by audiences who felt a bit betrayed by the outcome. They were both strong box office performers, but they each fell off dramatically from the first two chapters. Unfortunately, by that time Lionsgate had already greenlighted a split of the final book of the Divergent trilogy and the results are less than spectacular.

After having discovered that she and her fellow divergents were the victims of a massive conspiracy to isolate the public from the wastelands outside the borders of post-apocalyptic Chicago, Tris (Shailene Woodley) must contend with an angry populace wanting to string up the members of the Erudite faction for their repugnant plans that dominated the first two films. When she’s unable to convince the new movement’s leader Evelyn (Naomi Watts) to stop the vengeance killings, she helps her brother (Ansel Elgort) escape and enacts her plan to scale the wall along with Four (Theo James), Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Peter (Miles Teller) and Tori (Maggie Q).

Once outside the protection of Chicago, they discover an irradiated wasteland where a nearby civilization thrives in its efforts to save the less fortunate from the dangers of life outside of the sanctuary. While they learn more about their predicament from region leader David (Jeff Daniels), Evelyn’s loyal Factionless members begin an escalating conflict with the peace-minded Amity faction led by Johanna (Octavia Spencer) that threatens to destroy the city they have called home.

If you’ve already become enamored with the storylines of the prior two films, there’s little in Allegiant that won’t feel compelling and familiar. That each film has employed slightly differing tones helps keep the franchise from getting bogged down in old habits. That lack of cohesiveness, however, does create a serious problem for those unfamiliar with the source material. Each film feels like its self-contained story could work on its own without the interference of the others even if events within each tie into the others with satisfying regularity.

It’s hard to believe that any of the actors here are having fun. Young cast members act as if they are being forced to embody characters that are both unlike them and driven by very narrow subsets of emotions. Each character, including the leads Tris and Four, has failed to grow beyond their initial attitudes. With each new film, one would expect some measure of growth that would suggest they aren’t being duped any longer, but familiar themes and situations populate this film as much as they did the prior and for some that could be frustrating.

On the other hand, you have the adult actors, three of whom are Oscar nominees (Spencer is the only winner of the bunch), who are providing performances that belie their years of quality work. These characters are superficially written given little more than a small margin in which to grow. The faction system of the first two films helped explain why they weren’t more rounded characters, but for someone like Evelyn or David, who’ve existed outside of the single-trait system, to come across as so one-dimensional, it’s a bit dispiriting. Spencer is the lone survivor infusing Johanna with something beyond the simplistic peaceful veneer her clan exhibits.

These stories exist in a world of their own, given limited voice in expressing a dismay at social ills, the dumbing down of the education system, the rigid orthodoxy of those in power, and the passion and perseverance inherent in the youth of our culture. These merits are better embodied in the Hunger Games series of books and films, but there’s plenty of narrative landscape to explore and develop such treatises.

Where Allegiant struggles most is in finding a path through this twisted environment that doesn’t backtrack on itself or drift aimlessly in an effort to fill screen time that could have been better utilized by a single chapter for the last film rather than a stretched, gaunt two-parter. The film ends on a satisfying cliffhanger that establishes the stakes for the final film as well as positions each chess piece on the board for the ultimate encounter. Unfortunately, all that likely remains is a testy battle between the scientists and their experiments.

In the final film, Ascendant, audiences will be wondering whether the ends justify the means and, judging by the third of the four films, things aren’t looking good. Allegiant has a buoyant production design and some fascinating observations about human nature, but it doesn’t have a lot of inventiveness. Perhaps we’ll discover in the final chapter that everything is so brilliantly interwoven that it makes the series feel like a cohesive and significant whole; however, unless and until that occurs, no one is likely to be impressed.

Review Written

April 14, 2016