Allegiant | Movie Review | Faith

Tris (Shailene Woodley) escapes with Four (Theo James) to journey beyond the wall that encloses Chicago. For the first time, they leave the only city and family they have ever known to find a peaceful solution. Once outside, they learn shocking new truths that render old discoveries meaningless. As the ruthless battle threatens humanity, Tris and Four quickly decide who to trust to survive. Tris must ultimately make difficult choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice and love. 

-  Wikipedia Synopsis

You can read my Divergent movie review HERE

You can read my Insurgent movie review HERE

This review will be SPOILER FREE

Allegiant is the third installment in the Divergent movie franchise. It follows Tris Prior along with Four on a journey to discover what is behind the wall. 

If you are a book fan, you would know that the past two movies haven't really followed the books. My personal favourite of the series would be Divergent because I think that it is a great film and adaptation because it holds everything I look for in a movie. I feel like Divergent was not only more loyal to the books but it held the essence and empowerment the books held. Insurgent and Allegiant felt completely different and felt very distant from both the books and the first film. A big thing that I appreciate when another director comes onto the series is when they respect the first directors work. Changes were made in Allegiant that made no sense at all, suddenly the technology was different and everything from the first film was stripped away.

A big problem I had with Insurgent was the overuse of CGI and the action sequences. You see, I understood the overly complicated changes they made for the film but it doesn't mean that they make sense. The world of Divergent is futuristic but it is rustic and realistic. There are no hovercrafts, laser beams, weird showers and weird guns. It holds elements of the world we know today, it's just a little bit more rusty. In allegiant, about 85% of the film is CGI. Now, I will admit it did look very pretty but just because it's attractive, it does not mean it's going to make a good film. In this film, there was so much CGI and action sequences that it took away from everything else in the movie. It was almost as if it was a distraction.

The technology in this film was very interesting. Do I think it was needed? No. I do think that it was put in to make this world my techy and interesting. It was fun to watch.

A big problem that I have actually had with all three of the films so far, is the lack of care in the development of the characters and relationships. In the first film, we barely got to reflect on the friendships between the characters but when something happened to those characters, it left something on me because we got the moment to pause from the action and embrace what was happening. In this film, I felt absolutely nothing when a character would die. The character would literally drop dead and we would run away with absolutely no reaction.

There was basically only one relationship that was shown in this film and that was the relationship between Tris and Four. For a few moments in the movie, I liked seeing their partnership in battle but when ever they weren't fighting, there was nothing really there. Their relationship was one of my favourite parts of the books and it wasn't shown in the movie. Their relationship is so complicated and they only showed them kissing for the most part and Four being stubborn. While Four's stubbornness was part of the book, I still wanted more. Also, Tris doesn't call Four, Tobias. So many things that were significant in the books that weren't shown in the movie and was overshadowed by all of the CGI and action.

I don't really remember the book but I am sure that there weren't riots in this world. I really don't wanna say this but there were so many aspects of this film where it reminded me of a certain YA dystopian film. I don't want to think that, but the way things are set I can't help it. I also don't think all of the futuristic stuff helped. There was nothing in this film that surprised me or that I found original or that really stood out to me. It left no impact.

I have mentioned this before and I will say it again. There is way too much action in this film. I love action, I think it's great but in this case it casts a shadow over the plot and the characters. It's nice to feel things in films and to really see the characters but there is so much going on with this story that it's completely lost. I don't want the action to be completely gone but I would like there to be less.

In Allegiant, the plot isn't explained very well in my opinion. If you've read the books, you would know that there is a group called the Allegiant. That group is such a big part of the story and they were just briefly mentioned. They didn't even seem like a big threat in the film because we were so focused on everything else. Also the whole genetic side of thing was kind of blown over. That's another thing we didn't see the significance of because that's also a major thing. 

Having seen the way this movie ended, it makes me wonder how they're going to continue. The plot from the book has been played out so what's going to happen in Ascendant? I don't know how it's going to happen but I'm sure there's going to be plenty of action and CGI. I hope that they include the zip lining scene and more emotional moments because we have been lacking in the past two films.

As a book-movie adaptation, this movie is kind of off. However as a film, it was pretty decent. There was nothing in the film that stood out to me, I thought it was pretty generic. Although I did love the CGI despite my annoyance with the usage of it. I did think it was quite pretty. Sometimes I find the decisions a little weird, such as the bubbles. I like how they used the bubbles as part of a comedic relief at one point in the film because it was pretty hard to take those bubbles seriously.

The acting in this movie was very good as it has been since the very first film. I love the comedic moments from Peter, he is definitely one of the highlights of the movies.

Overall, I did not hate this film. I know my points may have made it seem like it did but I really didn't. In fact, I liked it a lot more than Insurgent. It was a fun and interesting movie to watch, as a book-movie adaptation it kind of falls down the line. I am excited to see where Ascendant is going to go. I would rate this movie a 4 out of 5 stars. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this review!

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