Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers!
On March 20, “Insurgent,” the second movie of the bestselling trilogy Divergent was finally released, after a long-awaited year. So, of course, being the avid moviegoer and Divergent fan I am, I saw “Insurgent” the first day it was released. It exceeded the expectations I had based on the first movie. Where the movie lacked in resemblance to the book, it made up for in action and suspense.
“Insurgent” shows the journey of main character, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), along with her family, friends, and foes, after their escape from the attack against Abnegation at the end of the first movie.
The faction system plays a major role in the basic storyline of the Divergent trilogy. There are five factions, and each person is expected to take an aptitude test when they are 16 to decide which faction they belong in, no matter where they are born. The factions consist of Amity, the faction of peace; Abnegation, the faction of selflessness; Erudite, the faction of intelligence; Dauntless, the faction of bravery; and Candor, the faction of honesty. Then, there are the Divergents, people who don’t fit into a single faction; thus, according to Jeanine (the antagonist of the story), these people “pose a threat to [their] society.”
While the antagonist of the trilogy, Jeanine (Kate Winslet), didn’t have the chance to show just how evil she truly was in the first movie, she was able to show pure evil throughout “Insurgent” from the time that she breaks into Amity, in an attempt to find Divergents, to when she pushes Tris nearly to death in a simulation just to try to unlock the box that holds the secrets of the utopian future of Chicago.
Divergent’s protagonist, Tris, goes through a sequence of events throughout the movie, starting with the arrival with her love interest, Tobias (Theo James), her brother, Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Tobias’s father, Marcus (Ray Stevenson), and one of her many mortal enemies, Peter (Miles Teller). This group tends to stick together throughout the majority of the movie aside from a few stray scenes. Tris, Tobias, and Caleb end up meeting Tobias’s mother (whom he believed to be dead since he was 6).
The scene when Tris, Caleb, and Tobias meet the factionless army was interpreted so well from the book; there were few differences, and almost nothing was cut out. Because of this, that scene was one of my favorites. The scene was so relevant to the movie seeing as, without the factionless army, they wouldn’t be able to fight Jeanine with Erudite by her side.
My other absolute favorite scene was when Tris was able to (along with the help of her friends) break back into the room in which she was earlier put into a stimulation by Jeanine in order to unlock the box that held the history of the world before Chicago turned into a Utopian society. The scene was action-packed and it kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time.
While the movie doesn’t really end with a bang!, it does end leaving you wondering what will happen next. Will they go outside the wall as they say they will? Will there be another war?
Though the movie doesn’t follow the book exactly, “Insurgent” is a must-see for any fans of the first movie or the books. If you’re bored on the weekend or finish your homework early and want to do something fun, I’d recommend going to see “Insurgent.” You won’t regret it!
