I don’t know about you, but I’d be perfectly content if Dystopian Days took a break from the cinematic screens.
Damn Depressing.
Of course, as long as Tris and Katniss are taking turns jumping from the pages of YA novels into still-successful franchises, the Darkness and my ‘D’ key shall continue their Dance.
Insurgent goes where Divergent dared leave the devoted followers of the work of novelist Veronica Roth. The outcast rebels led by Beatrice Prior, shortened to Tris in her first-film relationship with man-of-action Four, are hiding out in the seemingly happy place of The Amity, tussling with what their insurgence has wrought and the ominous directives of president Jeanine.
There are plenty of rising stars in this middle piece of Roth’s puzzle — yes, another novel, Allegiant, waits in the wings — for new director Robert Schwentke to attempt to make moviegoers think he and the movie live up to Neil Burger’s first effort, always a dicey proposition. Shailene Woodley indeed looks pumped up for the greater challenges that await Tris. She runs faster, jumps higher, cries harder and wrestles more graphically with the emotional canyons that appear in her sims. (These simulations breathe life into the Dingy Diorama, by the way.)
Theo James as Four goes a little deeper this time around, even though his basic look and plot points still teeter between these: Dour and Dire. Both of them, too, take on the increased level of gun killing in this one with great speed and skill after the appropriate amount of moral hesitation.
And, lo and behold, the YA’ness allows them one slight love scene. There is a suggestive lowering of a zipper (her, of her own). To this, he .. Well, they do not show his reaction to that.
