Preface

• Wait, what? We’re actually doing a new movie review on My Movie Thoughts???

Premise

• If you guys remember my Top 5 Worst Movies of 2014, you’ll remember I didn’t like Divergent.
  • I felt like it was a carbon copy of The Hunger Games, I didn’t think it had any depth or originality to it. (Check out the Honest Trailer below, because that is a clear statement of every issue I had with this movie.)
  • But I was really optimistic for the sequel because the end looked like the franchise was going in a really cool and original direction.
• So following the rebellious efforts of Tris and Four (we’re still calling him that?) the two are trying to get support for their cause from some of the other Houses at Hogwarts.
• And ultimately, there’s this test that’s also kinda looming over everything that questions what it means to be a Divergent.
• And I’ll be honest, I know you guys REALLY want me to crap all over Insurgent, but compared to Divergent: it’s actually not that horrendous.

Cast and Characters

• So starting out with the positive: Shailene Woodley was good in this movie. She’s a good actress, I enjoy seeing her in things, I still don’t think she’s any kind of definitive action hero but she remains functional in the role of Tris.
• Theo James, okay. I thought he wasn’t as bad in Insurgent as he was in Divergent, but the guy can’t act. At least not in this role, put him in a Tarantino film or something and then we’ll see. But I was talking to one of my friends after the movie and said, “if his character just died at the end of the first movie, then this one could have been slightly better.”
• Then Kate Winslet is phoning it in on this movie cuz they still need some credibility to be brought to the franchise.
• Ansel Elgort was kinda snappy for the 4 minutes he was onscreen and my campaign for him as new Peter Parker will continue until a casting announcement is released.
• Miles Teller was completely wasted in this movie and it almost felt like his character wasn’t sure what he wanted to be.
• And it was great when they tried to bring some kind of relevance to the unimportant supporting characters.
  • Hilariously, Naomi Watts plays Four’s mom in this movie and she looks like she is younger than Theo James who plays Four. That’s pretty weird…
  • And the dude from Hawaii Five-0 is in it too in Role Unimportant.
• Jai Courtney is in the movie, and it’s the first time I’ve actually noticed him in something. And yeah he was a jerk for the role he played, so he was fine I suppose.
• I liked some of the really small characters because they felt the most human, like maybe a few characters with just one or two lines.
• But the word for the characters is “developing” because each one does develop at least a little bit in this one, which I gotta give the movie credit for.

 

Writing

• And I’ll tackle the movie’s kinda positive before the heavy negative.
• So some of the writing in this movie was pretty good.
  • The dialogue is a different story that I’ll get to, but writing.
• The way the story progressed was cool enough, and there were even a few clever points that the movie threw your way.
• I thought the whole test aspect was cool, but some of the lead up just didn’t feel grand enough in scale and almost unnecessary.
  • Like the first 30 minutes of this movie were downright horrible, mostly because nothing was happening and it was a complete rehash of the first Divergent.
• The movie gets repetitive at a point, but at least the comically hilarious dialogue kept it good.
  • This isn’t a comedy if you didn’t know. Some of it feels like it is.

 

Directing

• The visuals in this movie were actually really good, and the fight sequences usually looked kinda cool. But…
• The way other scenes were shot felt weird and throughout the film I never really got the sense that pressure was building.
• I do however compliment the director on making this movie seem more full than the first one did.
  • Even though, at points, it gets a bit convoluted I liked that there were things going on in this movie where the first one felt so predictable and by the numbers.
  • This one at least was repetitive and I like cool repetitiveness over ripped-off predictability.

 

Stray Observations

• I thought the end to the movie was REALLY cool, both in general and the specific final scene.
• It ends in a cool place, and sets up for the third one with what I was expecting this one to pick up with. I did like this adventure though because it seemingly leads into the next film quite well.
• That final shot too, super cool!

 

In Conclusion

• In Conclusion, I actually enjoyed watching Insurgent.
• I thought about it after seeing it and was debating giving it a fresh rating but everything about it was “okay” and since the dialogue killed the other kinda cool ideas, yeah I can’t give this a positive review.
• I do think it was a massive improvement over the first one though, and you’ll only hate the first 30 minutes if your girlfriend takes you to it.

 

2.8/5

 

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So guys, those are my thoughts on Insurgent! Have you seen this movie and if so, what did you think about it? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.