So a couple weeks ago, I watched the Insurgent movie. I was supposed to see it with Gazelle, but that didn't happen. Just from the trailer, I could tell that the movie had a bigger budget and they knew how to use it. With the holograms everywhere and the more vivid sims, this movie was definitely getting their bang for their buck. However, I usually get annoyed when movies add things like the holograms because, even though they're a nice touch, they poke holes in the story because of their absence in the previous movie.
I thought that the movie was okay, but there are a lot of things missing from the books and even more things added. I didn't remember the box from Insurgent, please let me know in the comments if it was in the book. There was very little character development in Four and Tris, but we did learn more about the smaller characters that play a bigger role later, like Jeanine, Caleb, Peter, and Evelyn. There didn't seem to be a lot of action and looking back on the movie, it felt like just one big blur that felt blah. I didn't really feel a lot of emotion during the movie, which annoyed me because I wanted to. It's not because I read the book, either, because there are tons of book to movie adaptations where I felt emotions towards the chararacters, but that didn't seem to be the case for Insurgent. I probably won't watch it again, and it just wasn't as good as the Divergent movie.
That's it for my non-spoiler review. Go watch it and then we can discuss the movie in detail. If you've already seen the movie or if you've read the book and don't mind being spoiled for the movie then read on!
Okay, so I'm going to break down the movie by character because I had my notes written down in order of the movie but character seems a bit more orderly to me.
I thought that the movie was okay, but there are a lot of things missing from the books and even more things added. I didn't remember the box from Insurgent, please let me know in the comments if it was in the book. There was very little character development in Four and Tris, but we did learn more about the smaller characters that play a bigger role later, like Jeanine, Caleb, Peter, and Evelyn. There didn't seem to be a lot of action and looking back on the movie, it felt like just one big blur that felt blah. I didn't really feel a lot of emotion during the movie, which annoyed me because I wanted to. It's not because I read the book, either, because there are tons of book to movie adaptations where I felt emotions towards the chararacters, but that didn't seem to be the case for Insurgent. I probably won't watch it again, and it just wasn't as good as the Divergent movie.
That's it for my non-spoiler review. Go watch it and then we can discuss the movie in detail. If you've already seen the movie or if you've read the book and don't mind being spoiled for the movie then read on!
Okay, so I'm going to break down the movie by character because I had my notes written down in order of the movie but character seems a bit more orderly to me.
- Tris: Again, I just didn't really feel like Tris had much character development. She didn't really have much dialogue either, now that I think of it. In Insurgent, she seems a lot stronger in general but she still has this weak, vulnerable side that I really like. I love the character progression since the beginning of Divergent because she goes from being this really shy, weak girl into this strong person. Even though Tris can make stupid decisions sometimes, she really breaks the idea that great female characters have to be born strong, because she wasn't. Despite that, she still has her downsides. My one main irk is that she could've shot Will in the leg, but I get that she did what she had to and that it still bothered her. In pop culture these days, you see people killing others left and right, but no one ever seems affected by the fact that they're taking lives. Katniss and Tris both have that quality where the people they kill haunt them because they value life. I wish it could be seen in male characters too, because, only having that trait in female characters may be percieved as a weakness when it is actually a strength. A hole in the story, which goes way back to shallow from super-deep, is how she frosted her hair. I understand that the only way she could face herself for all the lives lost is by not looking at herself, but her cut hair was definitely frosted and looked too professional for something a teenager did on theirself.
- Four: I felt like Four was barely in the movie, except when it came to Evelyn, but I'll talk more about their relationship later. He seemed really distant with Tris emotionally which bothered me. That seems to happen a lot in books but more in movies, where your ship finally gets together but they never actually have a talk about it. I didn't have much written down about him, but Theo's accent definitely came through more than once.
- Four and Evelyn: First of all, can I just say that Evelyn looked like his sister more than his mom?
- Apparently Naomi Watts is 46? I hope I look as good as her when I'm 46! There's 16 years between them, which is kinda weird but somewhat believeable since she supposedly married young. I still am mad at her character for being selfish enough to abandon her child in that kind of an environment, so I don't blame Four for that. I want to see more development in their relationship that we didn't really get in Allegiant because Veronica Roth just skipped over a long period of time.
- Peter: Okay, I thought Peter was flipping hilarious in this movie. That scene when he told the Amity girls there was a rainbow behind them and then cut in front of them when they were turned: classic. It bothered me how casually he talked about killing people over breakfast, because it shows that being fugitives took its toll on everyone, even Peter. I'm glad that he was on their side in the end, and slowing her heart rate was a really smart idea. I liked his character development because he went from being a total douchebag to a sometimes douchebag. Improvement!
- Caleb: I hate Caleb and I will never forgive him. If you've read Allegiant, you know why. He seemed like such an airhead and just really irritating during the whole movie. These are things he actually said. "Wait, what do you mean we're official fugitives?" "We're going out the window?" I wanted to give him a good smack upside the head. Even when he was with Tris and Four, he was useless. Even though he has at least a foot on Tris, she was faster than him while carrying a machine gun. And when they were fighting on the train, he just stood there and let his sister almost get killed. Basically, every time I saw him, I wanted to knock over a xylophone (OMG GLEE REFERENCE).
- Jeanine: First of all, Jeanine's french twist was on fleek. Just saying, hair and makeup did a very nice job with her. Anyways, I really liked that we could see the flaws in Jeanine, and how she had such little human interaction that she just couldn't process the meaning of dead. It gave insight into what her childhood could've been like, with her having no friends and trying to prove that she could be successful, and just lost it when she thought that was all gone. It made her seem more human and showed that she was really starting to crack.
- Johanna: I love Octavia Spencer, and in all of her work I've seen, she continues to impress me. I wish her character could've had a bit more sass, because she just seemed to stiff to be realistic. One line I wanted her to have was when the Dauntless trucks were driving over her fence, and I really wanted her to say, "Oh, sure, just break down all our fences and drive all over the fields. Not like we grow your food or anything."
- The Technology: Like I said earlier, the holograms not being in the first movie kind of made its own plot holes just because having said they just developed all the new technology and put it up is really unrealistic. Also, I thought that Tris and Four were immune to serums, so shouldn't they have been concious under the truth serum? I remember from the book that the truth serum didn't work on Tris and I'm pretty sure that it didn't work on Four either. Again, its been a while since I've read the book so I may be wrong. Also, the head scanner that placed you in a faction. Where did that come from? How were they able to develop that so recently, and why were they using the sims then, if that would've been much faster and made it easier to root out divergents. Also, in the books, they say that Tris was divergent with qualities for Dauntless, Abnegation and Erudite, yet Jeanine's little scanner said she was 100% divergent, and I'm guessing that means she has traits from all of the factions.
- The Woods Scene: I just wanted to say that when they were running in the woods, I actually said this out loud. "Ladies and gentlemen, let the 76th Hunger Games begin!"
So those are all my thoughts on the Insurgent movie. Again, I just enjoyed Divergent more, but maybe that was because I had higher expectations for the next one. They also never explained in the movie what Insurgent meant, which bugged me.
Thanks for reading,
Caramel