INSURGENT: THE BATTLE CONTINUES

It seems that today’s teens are being exposed to literature in an unusual format. The rash of teen novels in several parts took off big with THE HUNGER GAMES but there are other stories out there being read. That’s a great thing. While it’s not Twain or Hemingway it is reading that is going on and it might lead to their discovering the classics. In the meantime they’re enjoying the books being written now. So much that movies are being made from the novels. As well as the aforementioned GAMES there is the DIVERGENT series. Now the second film based on the second novel, INSURGENT, comes home to DVD.

When we last saw them Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) had taken on the forces of Jeanine (Kate Winslet) and headed for the outskirts of Candor, the city where the story takes place. On the chance you missed that film this was a world where people were sorted into 5 different factions, each with their own responsibility to society. Tris had abandoned her family’s faction known as Abnegation (selflessness) in favor of the more adventurous Dauntless (the brave). Eventually with several others in her group they discovered a plot to kill the Abnegation faction by the Erudite (intelligence) faction using Dauntless soldiers being mind controlled to do the dirty deed. Tris and Four led a group to stop this and that’s where we pick up with this film.

On the run the Dauntless have separated and yet to rejoin one another. A secret box was found in the home Tris’ family lived in and Jeanine finds that the only way to open it is by using someone who is purely Divergent, an amalgamation of all the factions in one body. She sends the remaining Dauntless units out to find the traitors so she can use them for her goal, thinking that whatever is in the box can lead to the fall of the Divergent.

A near miss with being captured, Tris and Four set off to find the rest of their group, jumping a train filled with a group of factionless drifters. A short fight later and Four reveals who he is and asks to be taken to their leader. He knows who this is and it plays into the story later (sorry, no spoiler from me on this one). Refusing to join with the factionless at this time, they reunite with their group and make plans to take back Candor. But Tris, realizing that her being their puts them all in jeopardy, heads back on her own. What happens from there makes for a few tense moments, some high-speed action and a great story that ends without a complete conclusion. Two final installments are in the working stages as we speak, much like THE HUNGER GAMES.

What makes this movie work is the unique combination of story and action, of emotions and bravery put on display from start to finish. We know the characters after the first film but now we get to see how they react to the things that they learned and what they will do with that knowledge. It would be easy to just hide or try to go somewhere outside the walls that guard the area they live in. But rather than take that route we witness the growing up of young people willing to sacrifice themselves to make a better world. It’s a far cry from selfie taking spoiled children of today. With any luck they’ll get that out of this series of books and movies.

Woodley turns in another great performance. The most difficult thing for an actor to do is to take on a character that many already think they know and make that person their own. Woodley does just that here making Tris a sympathetic character that you can’t help but root for. James holds his own with her but it felt like his role here was less involved and more the heroic action figure that Four can become. Being this is the middle of the entire story that might change next time around. The supporting cast also turns in great performances but the majority of the acting is left in the hands of the central figures this time.

The movie looks great with some dazzling special effects sequences that are well done, computer generated realities that have you guessing as the movie carries on, wondering which sequences we’re watching are real and which are the worlds created by the machinery Jeanine uses to try and open the box. It all looks great and propels the story forward, something effects rarely do.

I highly recommend watching the first movie once more before tapping into this one but if you’ve seen it once you’ll begin to remember what happened rather quickly this time around. Then enjoy this one and find yourself waiting with the rest of us for the next two to appear. This series may not have taken the box office by storm as much as THE HUNGER GAMES did, but it’s just as appealing an entry in to the teen action genre. For me, it’s another one to add to the shelf, ready to be pulled down every so often and enjoyed once again.

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