BEFORE: Well, I guess I was always going to end up HERE this September - initially I would have started this series a week ago, but then I decided to add that Jason Statham block, and that pushed everything back - or forward, I guess, forward in time. Today was also going to be the first of three September skip-days, but then I added "Transporter" and "Transporter 2" to the Statham block, and that set me back - er, forward, another day, but just one because I doubled up on Labor Day. SO no skip day this week, maybe next week and the week after that - though I might have a chance to see a new film called "Hangdog" which is going to slide RIGHT into the chain I'm already watching. If I do that, then really just one September skip-day coming up.
Jeez, now I really need to check the path from Halloween to Christmas, because anything I add just takes away another film from the end of the year. I need to know before this Saturday how many steps it's going to take me to get from the end of the horror chain to something Christmas-ey, and plan that out accordingly, so at some point, seriously, no more last-minute adds. I mean it this time, I was only kidding all those other times.
Working late at the theater tonight, a panel event called "Nicer Tuesday", one of the people being interviewed was a famous letterer, and I didn't know that was a job outside of making comic books. But apparently she designed the lettering for the title logo on the poster for "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." and I just watched that movie three days ago, so that's an odd coincidence. I didn't get the chance to eat dinner, but my wife got a delivery from Seamless that was a mistake, she ordered Burger King but instead got two Mexican bowls from someplace else, so she got a refund and I got to eat 2 free dinners. Yes, two, because I had a small lunch and then a donut and so far today, that was it.
Jai Courtney carries over from "The Exception".
THE PLOT: In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she's Divergent and won't fit in. When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late.
AFTER: I know, I know, there was a debate tonight but I was busy working, that's my excuse. Gotta keep earning so I can pay that mortgage. Anyway I'm counting on the late-night talk show hosts and the comedy news to break it down for me, what happened. Some may not do that until tomorrow because they tape their shows at like 5 pm, I think. So I'm not behind, I just couldn't be bothered, because how would I even work the debate into a review of THIS movie? Something like, "OK, last night's film was about World War II and tonight's film is set 100 years after World War III. Hey, speaking of that, if you're undecided why not vote this year for the candidate that's less likely to make World War III happen? And you know which crazy orange-haired lunatic would be more likely to do that..." I don't know, it feels forced somehow. Totally valid and correct, but still forced.
But it's also a fine time to watch this series, it turns out, because it's on Netflix and getting kicked OFF of Netflix at the end of the month. Geez, has it been two years already? Sure, that's enough motivation for me to finally watch it, but I'm guessing once it's off Netflix it's going to pop up on either Hulu or cable. That's how this works, right? I mean, if they run this on cable I'll totally put it on DVD for the archive, but I'll watch it now, because nothing's for sure, maybe it won't be available again for two years, who can say?
I'd heard a few things about this film series over the years, but somehow managed to avoid actually, you know, watching the films. I was waiting for the right time, I guess, but that time is here if I say it is. Sure, there are parts of this film that are completely ridiculous, but any time you set a film a few hundred years in the future, well, that's the time to be ridiculous, you have to make that film stand out from all the other future utopian or dystopian films, like "The Giver" and "The Hunger Games" and "Blade Runner" and "12 Monkeys" and "City of Ember" and "Children of Men" and "I Am Legend" and "Ender's Game" and even "Demolition Man". So you need a hook, something to distinguish your story from that big pack.
Here, it's the fact that people are "tested" to determine which virtue they best embody, and then they are placed in that faction, where they work and live and eat and play with only other people from that faction, and once you find your tribe, that's it, you can't change it, you have to keep living in future Chicago according to a lengthy set of rules that go along with that virtue. The factions are: Erudite (the scholars & ruling class), Dauntless (the military & de facto police squad), Candor (the honest tribe, this apparently includes lawyers, and I can't tell if this is a joke or ironic or what), Amity (the kind people who farm) and Abnegation (the selfless people who take excess food and distribute it to the hungry and faction-less).
Really, it seems like a perfect system, because nobody in the future needs actors or talk-show hosts or influencers or writers or comic-book artists or sports stars or Amazon delivery drivers who don't ring your doorbell for some reason I can't possibly comprehend. They worked a lot of stuff out, OK, and got rid of some very unnecessary jobs, I get it, they want to focus on just what's important in life, and they trimmed that down to five essential things. And then by dividing people into these factions with very rigid rules and very different mandated outlooks on life, there couldn't POSSIBLY be any contention between the factions, right? No people thinking their faction is so much better than the others, I'm sure everyone got beyond that ages ago, right? RIGHT?
So there's a testing system that tells people at age 16 which faction they're best suited for, and most people then join those factions, even if that means leaving their family's home to do that, however at the Choosing Ceremony, each person is free to choose a different faction if they think for some reason that the test got it wrong. So, OK, still some personal choice, if you feel drawn to a profession you're still free to go that way, it all sounds quite fair and rational. Beatrice finds out, however, that's she's a fit for THREE different factions, and her tester is clearly weirded out by her results, because that's not normal, it's what they call Divergent. So she recommends that Beatrice join the Abnegation faction, which is what her parents are in, but during the ceremony she makes a bold move and chooses one of the other factions, Dauntless.
It's not going to be easy, sure it looks like fun to run everywhere at top speed and hop on moving trains without waiting for them to slow down, and doing all that cool parkour shit (sorry, everyone, that parkour shit sticks around in the future, it hasn't gone away as we all hoped it would have...). But somehow Beatrice (who changes her name to Tris after the ceremony) didn't realize that she would miss her parents so much (umm, even thought they TOLD her this would happen) and also she didn't realize that she'd have to learn to fight hand-to-hand combat, learn to fire guns and also there would be brutal choices to be made in the near future. Duh, did she not realize that joining a military police-like faction would involve violence and gunplay? So, umm, WHY did she choose this lifestyle again, what was the rationale there if she's a pacifist at heart?
Look, I get it, I caught the theater and film-making bug when I was in high-school, and when I realized that I could choose filmmaking as a career (George Lucas was my idealized hero) then I went for it. But there was an aptitude test I took in high school that basically told me I wasn't suited for such a career, because it would take a lot of networking and social skills that I apparently didn't have. This kind of made me MORE determined to succeed, I was going to prove that aptitude test wrong - but mostly that test wasn't wrong, even though I've been working in independent filmmaking for over 30 years, I still have problems relating to other people, I don't have great social skills, and who knows, maybe I would have been more successful than I am if I'd followed a different path. But I'm stuck now, it's almost too late to change course.
Almost, but I still can - in the future ChicagoLand of "Divergent", there are no backsies, if you choose a faction and you can't make that work, then you go live outside the city like a homeless person as one of the Factionless. There's no back-up career, no pension plan, no re-training for you, if you fail at what you choose that's it, you're out. Yeah, that's a bit harsh perhaps, but you know what? Maybe the future is harsh, maybe World War III hardened everyone, as it might. Resources are scarce and some poor guy has to drive an oil tanker across the desert and some other guy has to hunt down Replicants and some other people need to represent their districts in a series of trials JUST so their families can eat. It's true what they say, the future just ain't what it used to be, and that's OUR fault. So, you know, vote accordingly. Hey, that one didn't feel forced at all...
So yeah, Tris trains with Dauntless and has the hots for Four, who somehow helps her pass her dream-based tests without revealing to the world that she's Divergent, no mean feat. But then the leader of the Erudite clan plans to overthrow the Abnegation faction, and she uses mind control on the Dauntless soldiers to do it. And the REASON that they were hunting Divergents is because they're immune to the mind control, they can still think for themselves, and that's very very dangerous, it would upset the plan. But eventually they can't hide her Divergent nature any more, and the other Dauntless start hunting Tris during the middle of the take-over, but her mother comes to her rescue, and starts to take her out of the city. But wait, first they have to find a way to shut down this whole mind-control thing, which isn't going to be easy, either.
That's it, that's the movie, I don't know why I avoided it for so long, it's a basic story all wrapped up except that there are two sequels that are getting kicked off Netflix too, so that's my life for the next two days, we'll see where this story goes and how it wraps up and basically, everyone in this series is going to make my year-end countdown if they're in all three movies. So we'll break it all down tomorrow and add it all up in December, I guess.
Also starring Shailene Woodley (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Theo James (last seen in "Mr. Malcolm's List"), Ashley Judd (last seen in "She Said"), Ray Stevenson (last seen in 'Thor: Love and Thunder"), Zoë Kravitz (last seen in "Dope"), Miles Teller (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "Plane"), Ansel Elgort (last seen in "The Fault in Our Stars"), Maggie Q (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Mekhi Pfifer (last seen in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer"), Kate Winslet (last heard in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (last seen in "Breathe"), Christian Madsen (last seen in "In Time"), Amy Newbold, Ben Lamb (last seen in "Now You See Me 2"), Janet Ulrich Brooks, Clara Burger, Rotimi (last seen in "Acts of Violence"), Justine Wachsberger (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Lukas Burger, Elyse Cole, Blythe Baird, Parker Mack
RATING: 5 out of 10 skyscrapers to zip-line through
No comments:
Post a Comment