{"id":2866,"date":"2015-04-30T07:25:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T11:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=2866"},"modified":"2015-04-30T07:27:35","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T11:27:35","slug":"diverging-from-expectations-insurgent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=2866","title":{"rendered":"Diverging from Expectations: Insurgent"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of IMDb.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rachel Tropp \u201816
\nEE<\/i> Senior Entertainment Editor<\/p>\n

On March 18th, the highly-anticipated sequel to the hit movie Divergent<\/i> was released in theaters. To the disappointment of the franchise\u2019s many fans, Insurgent <\/i>did not live up to its predecessor\u2019s greatness. Despite its star-studded cast and enormous budget, the movie fell flat, with a confusing and counterintuitive plot and recycled storylines that made it seem like a cheap knock-off of every young adult movie from the past fifteen years.<\/p>\n

At the start of the film, several months have seemingly passed since the events of the first movie. Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) are on the run, along with Tris\u2019s brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and the duo\u2019s frenemy, Peter (Miles Teller). They have taken refuge with Amity, but Jeanine (Kate Winslet) has started a search for all Divergents, as she needs them to open up a box with a message from the founders of their society.<\/p>\n

The main plot of the movie centers around Jeanine\u2019s quest to open the box, but many underdeveloped plot points stem from there. For one, Four\u2019s mother, who looks younger than the actor who plays Four, makes a surprise appearance as the leader of the Factionless, in a stunning repetition of the common fantasy plot in which characters reunite with their unknown parents, a plot most famous from Darth Vader\u2019s \u201cLuke, I am your father.\u201d<\/p>\n

This plot theft was only the beginning: the movie basically proceeded to make Tris a \u201cChosen One\u201d of Harry Potter proportions; then, she tried to kill herself to defy her captors, just like Katniss in the Hunger Games<\/i>, only to be thought dead in another copycat of Harry Potter<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Worse, within the first twenty minutes of the movie, Tris punched at least two people in the face, and several fights broke out for very little cause. In fact, throughout the movie there was a ridiculous amount of gratuitous violence, and also a gratuitous, ahem, PG-13 rated scene between Tris and Four at a point that made no sense. It got so ludicrous my friend leaned over to me and whispered, \u201cThis isn\u2019t a comedy…so why are we laughing?\u201d This question basically sums up the entire movie.<\/p>\n

Honestly, the suspension of disbelief required to remotely follow the plot was extremely taxing. Jeanine\u2019s evil villain motives often weren\u2019t backed up with reason; yes, it has been established she is evil, but there is no explanation for why she would act so cruelly and unreasonably, for all her supposed erudition, just in the pursuit of power. The fact that her followers even continued listening to her bizarre and self-serving instructions makes no sense.<\/p>\n

The Hollywood Reporter<\/i> wrote that the movie had \u201choles in the premise\u201d and \u201cnarrative deficiencies.\u201d This puts it lightly; the movie was shaky at best, annoying at worst. Tris spends half the movie feeling bad for herself because of the deaths she thinks she has caused, yet she spends the other half trying to kill people. Her Amity and Candor qualities, which so rarely reveal themselves in her actual personality, appear just in time to prove she is the \u201ctrue\u201d Divergent, which allows her to open the box so central to the plot.<\/p>\n

All the intriguing parts of the first movie were exhausted by its sequel, and a repeat of the injected control serum idea was much less endearing the second time around. Even the attempt to further involve other factions, especially Amity and Candor, in the sequel seemed forced and all of the events involving both factions were extremely over dramatic.<\/p>\n

The best parts of the movie were the appearances by Hawaii Five-O<\/i> actor Daniel Dae Kim and The Help <\/i>actress Octavia Spencer, both of whom are very talented and did a great job as the leaders of Candor and Amity, respectively, despite the limitations of the film. Miles Teller also shined in his witty and wise-cracking portrayal of the double-double-crosser Peter.<\/p>\n

If you have a spare afternoon, rent the DVD. But honestly, don\u2019t spend $10.50 to see the movie in theaters. It just isn’t worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rachel Tropp \u201816 EE Senior Entertainment Editor On March 18th, the highly-anticipated sequel to the hit movie Divergent was released in theaters. To the disappointment of the franchise\u2019s many fans, Insurgent did…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2866"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2870,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions\/2870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}