Insurgent - Movie

DISCLAIMER: I didn't read the Divergent books so this review is based purely off of the film itself. 

Insurgent.

Insurgent is the sequel to 2014's Divergent being adapted from the Divergent Series written by Veronica Roth. As with every series it seems these days the third book is being split into two movies but we're not at those yet. Insurgent takes place directly following the events of Divergent and continues Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four's (Theo James) quest for revolution. 

I actually liked Divergent a lot more than I had expected going into it and thought the series would have some potential. That being said, Insurgent let me down a bit. 

But first, the good things of the movie. Shailene Woodley kills it in this role as Tris and really is the shining star in this series. Miles Teller is great in it too but gets too little of screen time but I'll fault that on the source material instead of the movie especially since he was cast before he became pretty famous. Theo James stars opposite Woodley and while he was a good casting choice for his role, I kinda don't like him. 

There are these scenes in the third act of the film in which Tris has to undergo tests in which she has to in an almost alternate world get through some sort of obstacle whether mental, physical, emotional or all three. These tests are the highlight of the film and the point where I was fully invested in the story. 

Now the bad. Insurgent suffers from an overly convoluted plot that is actually kinda hard to follow. There are many  points where you're not sure what's real and what's fake or who's who. For me, the first hour of the film was kind of all over the place, hard to follow and frankly, a bit boring. I'm not heartless, I understand the second installment in any trilogy is used a lot for character development and setting up for the final installments which can make for boring films but, this is when you rely on the strength of your characters and that's where Insurgent falls short. Tris is by far the strongest character in terms of development while mostly everyone else is a cardboard cut out of a character. This brings the movie down quite a bit but it is still pretty enjoyable to watch. 

This Part is a Bit of a Rant: Being that this is a rant, most of it is my opinion and doesn't really deal with the movie in a fair way, that being said, ranting time. Tris's boyfriend and really second in command for the revolution is a guy named Four. I know they explained it barely in the first film and maybe the book explained it more but the film explanation isn't good enough. There's a point where his mom calls him by his birth name: Tobias and he slams a table and yells "My name is Four!" This takes me out of the movie because I can't take it seriously how everyone seriously calls this dude Four. There were points in the movie where I would be laughing to myself because of how ridiculous it sounds when Woodley is crying out for her boyfriend and she's saying "Four", she almost sounded like a distressed golfer. All of this kind of pointless bitching aside, I enjoyed the movie. 

Replay Value: 2/5, I'd watch it again in preparation for Allegiant Part 1 or if one of my friends really wanted to watch it. I don't really think I'd watch it again for my own personal enjoyment. 

Rating: 2.5/5, rather disappointing considering how much I enjoyed Divergent but, Insurgent just didn't really do it for me. Enjoyable overall and a must see if you're a fan of the series, obviously, but if you're looking for just a sci-fi ish movie to escape in, this may not be for you.