Insurgent (2015), PG-13, ★★

Theo James and Shailene Woodley talking it over. 

Politics and action don't mesh well together as we have witnessed from the Hunger Games saga and the Star Wars saga. It seems to me that the government always threaten the people with so much security that if there is no cooperation, the citizens will die. It brings to one question: If the government's threat interferes with the civilian's lives and they kill or arrest them: what is the government going to control? How are they going to control with no people? It's going to be a boring world or maybe a crowded prison. But, this movie is more unfocused on its characters and action than it needed to be thanks to the unsatisfying and minimalistic plot. Although, it could have been much worse.

Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet) sends a message to every faction of the city. She makes a statement to say that peace can be attained as long as they purge the city of their one enemy - the Divergents. Jeanine's men go to Abnegation and retrieve a box with a symbol of each faction of it. However, they need a Divergent to unlock it.

Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) is adjusting to Amity with Caleb, Four, Peter and Four's father, Marcus (Ansel Elgort, Theo James, Miles Teller and Ray Stevenson). Four remains distant from Marcus, even though Marcus wants to have a closer bond with his son. (This is now becoming a cliché: Why does a father and a son always remain distant after so many years nowadays in movies? Last week: Run All Night. This week: this movie.) Tris wants to go back to Erudite and kill Jeanine. But, Peter makes a statement about how Tris killed her parents and after an attack, she has been summoned to the office of Amity's leader, Johanna Reyes (Octavia Spencer).

After the discussion, which almost seemed like a discussion between principal and student, a team of vans come into Amity attacking the Divergents. Peter gives them away which leads Caleb, Tris and Four to get on a train while Marcus creates a diversion. They get on a train where a group of Factionless people attack them and Four reveals his real name and they take the three to his mother and leader, Evelyn (Naomi Watts). Meanwhile, Jeanine is testing Divergents to see who can unlock the box and it's not going well. Peter comes in and swears to loyalty to Erudite and he tells Jeanine that Tris needs to give herself up to make up her humanity. Um, ok.

Jeanine (Winslet) testing Tris (Woodley) to unlock the box.

This movie does has a very simplistic plot that it does not generate much excitement and frivolity in its material. It seems more like it is copying the Catching Fire plot than progressing the series with character development. But, there's just one problem: there's not much character development. Tris wants to prevent more deaths from happening and keeps falling in love with Four. Four is just distant from his parents, running and keeps falling in love with Tris. Oh, by the way, they have a love scene together. Caleb is just Tris' brother. Peter's mean and then has a change of heart. Jeanine remains ruthless and wants to kill Tris.

Is it me or when it comes to the Divergent series, Woodley does not give a convincing performance? She does not again, but she tries. But, compared to Katniss, I think there's no competition that Katniss would take over Tris for being memorable with such conviction and bravery. Theo James does not give a good performance. It also wastes Miles Tellers' talent although he has a few good lines. But, the only juice is in the supporting characters supplied by Octavia Spencer and Naomi Watts. Kate Winslet does not have much to do this time but she still remains quietly villainous.

Most of the film is more boring with showcasing set pieces and the bleak dystopian future but with repetitiveness as the characters run and bump into new and recognizable characters. However, there's nothing really going on. Some of it is fluff to consume the running time. The best part, however, was the last 30 minutes which delivers on action and suspense and that prevents it from being an awful movie to a bad movie. This movie does not propel the young adult series forward enough to sustain this source as memorabilia. It is a muddled product of young adults communicating dialogue that continues to go in circles and never goes anywhere until the final act.

**