The age of the young adult franchises are upon us now more than ever with yet another entry in the 'Divergent' series being released. Maybe it's just me, but I'm growing tired of weak films filled with same old clichés and unoriginal story lines based around the genre of 'young adult sci-fi'. Sure, a lot of people can say the same thing about the overabundance of superhero films, but there's a clear difference in quality. But the bottom line is that I'm just not the audience for these films.
Allegiant directly follows the events from Insurgent after the demise of Kate Winslet's Jeanine character. Naomi Watts reprises her role as Evelyn and pretty much follows the same unfortunate path that Jeanine did as leader of the dystopian Chicago. Four and Tris, played by Shailene Woodley, lead a small group of survivors into the outside world which was teased at the end of the last film. From there, every cliché you can possibly think of, follows. The characters who you think will die, die. The people who you think will be good or bad, end up being good or bad. There is nothing surprising or noteworthy about the film's plot.
The positives do however come from some of the performances. Theo James continues to be a pleasant surprise and does as much as he can with a weak script. He has a definite future in the film business. Woodley is solid as she usually is and so is Jeff Daniels and Naomi Watts. The problem is that the film around them is average at best. The pacing is painfully slow at times and nothing really happens until the final 20 minutes. Of course, it's set up for an unnecessary and unplanned 4th film purely for the reasons of making money, because there could have easily been an ending here. Overall, a weak script and horrible green screen moments end up making a disappointing third entry in the series.
+Music
+Performances from James and others
-Green screen moments
-Pacing
-Nothing original and full of clichés
4.8/10
