BEFORE: I've got a big problem tonight, what do I CALL this movie? It's another case where the marketing department was in charge of naming a franchise film, which, frankly is never a good idea. The film was originally called "Insurgent", but then I'm guessing maybe it didn't perform as well at the box office as the first film did - which is NATURAL and NORMAL, most films don't carry their whole audience over to a sequel, because there may be a portion of people who went to see the first film and were underwhelmed, or even just plain whelmed. But of course then the marketing department needs an excuse, so they blame the title.
Sure, perhaps some people didn't realize from the title "Insurgent" that the film was part of the "Divergent" franchise, but the most important people, the fans of the book, they knew. Screw everybody else, we shouldn't have to spoon-feed all these Gen Z'ers who are too dumb to understand that THIS movie is a sequel to THAT movie. Can't they just Google it? No, we can't take that chance, so the film has to be re-branded as "The Divergent Series: Insurgent" which is just plain terrible. This was the "Twilight" form of nomenclature, right? We can't just call the film "Eclipse" because Americans will be too stupid to figure out what franchise it's a part of? So it has to be "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" which is so very clunky, plus it's inconsistent with the FIRST film, which was just "Twilight". Why not re-title the first film "The Twilight Saga: Twilight" and be just as moronic as you can be?
Sure, they could have tried "Divergent 2: Insurgent", but apparently the marketing departments all believe that people hate numbers in the title, then they won't go and see "Divergent 2" because they didn't see the first film. So, really, you're counting on a certain segment of the populace to just wander in to your movie accidentally, unaware that they're seeing a sequel? They'll be more confused than ever, and that's no bueno. Really, guys, it's not complicated, look at the most successful franchises, like "Rocky" and "Rambo" and "Nightmare on Elm Street", they were just fine with numbering systems, at least until they needed to reboot. What's really too much work is trying to figure out if "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" came before "Transformers: Age of Extinction" - when there's a very simple way to distinguish the order of things, we already HAVE numbers available to us!
Really, I blame the Star Wars franchise, because in the old days we just called the second movie "The Empire Strikes Back", everybody knew what it was a sequel to, and then "Return of the Jedi", that was all the title we needed. Who can't keep track of three movies, and which order to watch them in? But then the marketing department took over and rebranded it all, so it was "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi" and then a few years later "Raiders of the Lost Ark" got rebranded so that "Indiana Jones" would be in the title, in case we all forgot which character was central to that movie. Give me a break! Either brand it properly from the beginning, or don't bother and let us figure it out, don't treat us like we're morons, even if some of us are. We don't have "Chinatown II: The Two Jakes" or "The Shining 2: Dr. Sleep" or "Romancing the Stone 2: The Jewel of the Nile", that's all just way too complicated.
I don't want to type out this long title every time, so I'm just going to revert to using this film's original title, which is "Insurgent". We all know it's part of the "Divergent" series, I don't need to keep saying it. And you know some idiot wanted to call this "Divergent 2: More Divergent-ier". Same guy who named "Expend-4-bles" probably.
Shailene Woodley and nearly everyone else carries over from "Divergent".
THE PLOT: Tris Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart with the help from others on her side.
AFTER: The story picks up right where the first film left off, which Tris, Four, Caleb and for some reason, Peter, exiled from Dauntless and on the run, they're hiding out with Amity, the simple farming folk who don't believe in violence. But, but, you told us in the first film that once you're assigned to a faction, you can't just CHANGE who you are, which determines where you live. Three Dauntless and one Erudite are going to live as simple farming folks? No way, I can't believe it - and sure enough, before long Peter's acting like a tool and says the wrong thing and Tris snaps and almost kills him. Yeah, I'm with Tris on this one, Peter's a jerk.
The situation is dire, with Erudite having wiped out Abnegation, and still in control of Dauntless, with the evil Jeanine trying to take over everything just because her faction is the smart one, and therefore should be in charge. Before long squads of Dauntless soldiers are sent on "routine" inspections of the other regions, including Amity. They're still looking for Divergents, with orders to destroy them, and they've got new scanning devices to help them find them. Our heroes take off (without Peter) and grab the next non-stopping train back into the city, only to find a train full of Factionless who are delivering stolen goods or something, well, it's good that they found work, isn't it? We were told that the Factionless were also Directionless, though, so something clearly has changed in future ChicagoLand. The faction system appears to be crumbling, so Tris and Four can't go back to Dauntless, as that faction is teamed up with Erudite or being controlled by Erudite, whichever.
So they hang with the Factionless for a while, and they appear to have a leader now, who's got a family connection to Four, aka Tobias Eaton, who might be Divergent himself. Well, his father might have been too, so it makes sense. But then they're off to Candor, the home of honest lawyers, because some of their Dauntless pals have taken refuge there. But Candor has been told that Tris and Four are criminals, responsible for the attack on Abnegation, which is fake news. So they agree to take truth serum and stand on trial so Candor can get to the bottom of things.
Meanwhile Jeanine has an artifact that she found in the home of Tris' parents, and it's a box with all the faction symbols on it, but the data within from the city's founders can only be opened by a Divergent, so now instead of killing Divergents, she needs one to help her open the box, so now they're meant to be captured alive. But all the Divergents that get plugged into the box can't survive the VR simulations that it puts them through, so she needs the really, really, special Divergent, and what a shock, that turns out to be Tris. She's like SUPER-Divergent, she can do anything for any faction.
So this is where the film stops ripping off "The Hunger Games" and starts ripping off "The Matrix", Tris has to survive FIVE virtual-reality sims, each one meant for a different faction, so she needs those Dauntless skills to survive one, but Abnegation sensibilities for the next one, and so on. Jeanine pushes her too hard, though, and doesn't give her a chance to rest, so she appears to die, just like all the other Divergents were killed by the Box, but hey, maybe there's a twist and she's only MOSTLY dead.
Will they get the box open? WIll Tris beat all five VR tests? What important data does the box contain? Well, you either know already or you don't, if you already know then you don't need me to tell you, and if you don't, it may not mean anything to you anyway. All that really matters is that the factions teamed up a certain way, but now everything's going to change again, and so in the next film it will be a whole new ball game. Only they don't have ball games any more in the future, I guess - at least the Cubs got to win one before World War III shut everything down.
Also starring Theo James, Kate Winslet, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Jai Courtney, Mekhi Pfifer, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Tony Goldwyn, Ashley Judd, Justine Wachsberger (all 13 carrying over from "Divergent"), Octavia Spencer (last seen in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"), Janet McTeer (last seen in "The Exception"), Daniel Dae Kim (last seen in "Stowaway"), Naomi Watts (last seen in "Penguin Bloom"), Emjay Anthony (last seen in "Replicas"), Kelynan Lonsdale (last seen in "Love, Simon"), Rosa Salazar (last seen in "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"), Suki Waterhouse (last seen in "Assassination Nation"), Jonny Weston (last seen in "Project Almanac"), Konrad Howard, Lucella Costa, Leonardo Santaiti, Kendrick Cross (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Phil Cappadora (last seen in "Good Time")
RATING: 5 out of 10 Candorian billable hours
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