I’d really like to hear an uncensored account of what Young Adult authors think about the adaptations of their books, because I tell you what, if I was Veronica Roth, I wouldn’t be saying many nice things about this latest instalment in the films based off my Divergent series.
The third entry,
Allegiant, is directed by Robert Schwentke (of the atrocity that is
R.I.P.D; definitely a warning sign if there ever was one). It would be more accurate to say this was ‘loosely inspired’ by Roth’s book, because he has absolutely desecrated it.
At the end of
Insurgent, also by Schwentke, our poor, supposedly traumatised heroine Tris (the perpetually expressionless Shailene Woodley) unlocked a box that revealed the truth about the dystopian society in which she lives: there is a world beyond the fence. So starts
Allegiant, with the fence locked down by self-appointed leader Evelyn (Naomi Watts), who, instead of being an inherently complex character (like all characters in Roth’s rather insightful look at modern society), is reduced here to an impulsive and wicked dictator.
Meanwhile, the evil Erudite people are being put on trial and executed. The Amity citizens (they’re the nice people, led by Octavia Spencer’s Johanna) don’t like this violence, so they retaliate… by inciting a war against everyone else. Logic.
Tris – the pinnacle of girl power that the movie emphasises over and over again – decides (surprise, surprise) to venture beyond the fence anyway, along with Tobias (Theo James), Tori (Maggie Q), and – because for some stupid reason they keep deciding to trust him – Peter (Miles Teller).
To be fair, a welcome addition to the cast is Jeff Daniels’ David, the director of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare that lies beyond the fence. His trustworthiness is ambiguous from the start, but he quickly devolved into a two-dimensional cut-out, completely devoid of a psyche or complexity, like the rest of the characters.
The screenplay features glaringly obvious dialogue (such as “Look! A truck!”) and incites several moments of unintentional humour. My favourite example is when Tris’ posse is walking through the desert outside-of-the-fence, and then suddenly, a truck, from nowhere, flies overhead and does a flip in slow motion. (Schwentke really likes his slow-motion.)
Random moments of slo-mo are not the only strange stylistic choices in
Allegiant. If the filmmakers spent even half the time they put into the flashy effects into developing a thoughtful story more in line with the source material, this movie could have recovered from the poor earlier episodes. Alas, we are left with this. Meanwhile, Joseph Trapanese’s violin-heavy score impedes on every scene, telling you how to feel.
Perhaps the most egregious part about this flick is the discrimination analogy that slapped me across the face repeatedly via the clichéd and unsubtle dialogue. It was so forced; it simply did not work.
The moments where screenwriters Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and Noah Oppenheim have tried to pad out Roth’s story stick out like sore thumbs. It was really sad to see how seemingly no one who worked on the film trusted that Roth’s writing would produce an engrossing and thought-provoking feature, or cared about her book at all, really, and felt the need to reduce it to a superficial action film.
Allegiant doesn’t warrant being a two-parter (
Ascendant, the series closer, is due out in 2017). Instead of just following Roth’s novel, the filmmakers have compressed it into a CGI fest, in which the audience is left to wonder who they’re supposed to sympathise with, or if they should even care.
I have no idea how they’re going to do
Ascendant (to be helmed by
The Age of Adaline director Lee Toland Krieger)
, chiefly because in this they’ve already botched one big plot point from the end of the novel. (No, not the one you’re thinking of readers. However, if they don’t do
that in the final entry, I am going to be beyond angry). If I was Veronica Roth, I would be deeply upset.
2/5
In cinemas April 14, 2016. Rated M for science fiction themes and violence.
Kyle Uglow-Turpin is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the contributors program.
Great can't wait to see