Allegiant will get my worst word to describe it: indifference. The movie so screwed up its logic, mythology, and character development that anything that happens is pointless. Being from Chicago, I am embarrassed that I have to mention this film with other films created here.
Do y’all remember? Blah blah blah young adult dystopic future. Blah blah blah the chosen girl, Tris (Shailene Woodley). Insert romantic hunk Four (Theo James), cold soulless monarch David (Jeff Daniels, taking over for Kate Winslet), best friend Christina (Zoe Kravitz), conflicted tag alongs, Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and Peter (Miles Teller), and power players Evelyn (Naomi Watts) and Johanna (Octavia Spencer), stir in CGI effects, and you have your recipe for box office success, right? RIGHT?????
Allegiant’s story is a study in destroying a character by moving the plot forward. The first two movies establish the trust Tris and Four have developed between each other…only for Tris to immediately side with someone she barely knows. Evelyn spent the entire 2nd film taking down a power crazed woman…to not listen to any of her allies to call her out for being power crazed. These characters have one defining characteristic and that’s it, making every character expendable and worthless to root for.
The movie also uses CGI eye candy to distract you from its stupidity. The special effects are glossy and cool ideas, I will say. However, it was only till after the film I went, “Hey!!” Each CGI piece is used as an out from every impossible conflict. Can’t find that pump controller? No problem, drone discs have your back! How are we getting out of this locked down facility? Got it! An undetectable spaceship I can learn to control on the fly!!! The dead silence for every cool escape speaks volumes to the pointlessness of Allegiant’s endeavors.
THANK GOD for Miles Teller. Every other character in Allegiant acts so morose it makes the storytelling a chore. Only Teller’s Peter seems to have fun with the world he is in, equally duplicitous and pompous. Shailene Woodley carries herself like the star of a franchise, but she gets NOTHING to do here. As long as she uses this to do quality filmmaking elsewhere, I’ll give her a pass. Theo James proves again that he will make a great future model, since his acting here is rigamortis stiff. Jeff Daniels has no feel for his big bad, and he sucks at playing the icy erudite that Winslet was at least ok at. Naomi Watts, Ansel Elgort, Zoe Kravitz, and Octavia Spencer are fine, but the script put 37 seconds of thought into their characters.
Much like y’all, I’m bored just writing or thinking about this movie. Allegiant, like a thief, will get in, get out, and leave undetected, while taking money from you at the same time. At this rate, part 2 will put the audience to sleep 5 minutes into its cash grab, but it’s irrelevant, like Veronica Roth’s book to movie adaptation.