Review: Insurgent

Review: Insurgent

Last weekend, the second installment of the Divergent series, Insurgent, premiered in theaters.

As many know, the series is based on the Young Adult trilogy Divergent, written by Veronica Roth.  Rebel Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), is on the run because of her ‘special mind’, along with her smoking hot boyfriend Four Eaton (Theo James), as well as her brother Caleb Prior (Ansel Elgort).

Following Tris and her band of insurgents is Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet), the leader of the Erudite faction. As the duo goes through the city trying to hide their identities and save the city, Jeanine manages to find an old recording of the founders of the city and its factions that outlines all the reasons for the existence of Divergent minds. The movie does no justice for its book counterpart, or the previous movie. When coming into the theatre, I expected to see bright eyed actors that made me believe they were trying to defend and save an entire population . Instead what  I saw was 119 minutes of overused CGI effects, cheesy lines, and sleepy acting. The acting of the heroine and her group in particular made me want to side with the villains of the story. For me, Peter Hayes (Miles Teller) kept the movie somewhat worth watching, with his sarcastic responses and engaging acting.

Overall, the movie basically follows the same plot as any other Young Adult book. Insurgent brought in $115,108,804 domestically, and a total of  $250,408,804 worldwide. Hopefully the next movie will be not only a suspenseful thriller, but also a wake up call for the actors to get their act together.