Why isn't Allegiant the last Divergent film? Because- Four.

I see what you did there Allegiant movie team, and I’m not even mad at you! 



My body is ready!



"On a scale of zero to Allegiant, how much did they change?'  This is the standard question to now be used when speaking about book to movie adaptations.

We're certainly pushing it

 

So, on a scale from zero to Allegiant, how bad is my pain?  The correct answer of course is always Four, even when it’s not. 

The answer is always Four

 

The Allegiant movie is a standalone piece of work that pulls from author Veronica Roth’s third novel of the same name.  To be fair, I’m really not sure why people are surprised that the film wandered as far from the source material as it did.  Insurgent wasn’t exactly a page for page adaptation either, liberties were certainly taken. 

Remember me?

 

Couple that with the fact that a lot of fans were not happy when they read Allegiant, and I’d think people would enjoy the fresh take on the franchise; the angry mob cries of teenage girls in the movie theater, however, would seem to indicate otherwise.

Calm down teens!

 

If you’re the glass half-empty type of book fan, you will leave the theater feeling like your world has been crushed and your heart has been unapologetically ripped from your chest.  You should know that you are also being really melodramatic, just like the teen girls who were sitting in front of me. 

Which side is your soul?

 

Change isn’t always a bad thing, as a matter of fact, change is good.  You change your underwear every day I hope.  Puberty is change, sure it has its ups and downs, but it leads you to a fruitful world of unending possibility.  There are a lot of feelings involved, I know, but don’t be dramatic about it, go with it! 

 

Let’s face it; Veronica Roth’s Allegiant really wasn’t expansive enough to constitute two movies.  For that to happen, the world was going to have to be expanded, and in some cases that expansion has completely changed the layout. 

So without further ado- Plot, plot, plot, plot...

I am

So, this movie was all over the book landscape.  I think I see what they are going for, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.  The first part of the book is loosely represented in the first part of the film.  The second half of the film seemed to focus heavily on the part of the novel ending that took place in Chicago, with some major differences and yet still the same idea.  These events then set up a sort of whole new layer to the plot that I anticipate will heavily influence the first part of Ascendant, with the second half of Ascendant containing that stuff from the end of the novel that took place at the Bureau of Genetic Fuckupery.  It’s a clever way to take limited content and spread it out by adding content instead of filer.  I may be in the minority here, but I do see what they were going for, and I applaud it. 

Someone who gets it

There were many things that the film did well, the most obvious for me being that they were able to really capture the split perspective, between Four and Tris, the way it was represented in the book.  I’d go as far as to say that Allegiant was more heavily focused on Four, which you will never hear me complain about. 

It makes me dizzy, but I don't even care

 

Theo James’ role this time around was very physical, more so than in the past two films even.  I’d seriously watch Four sitting on a couch, watching the Smurfs for two hours, so getting to see him kick some serious ass was an all-around good time. 

All day!

 

Hormones aside, Four is one of my favorite literary characters.  He is a complicated, layered and temperamental individual.  His response to the fringe, and what the bureau was doing there, was exactly as it should have been.  I fully support the shower he took before leaving, though.

Is it me or is his hair dry?

Why wouldn’t he have a Truman show like Four fan club?  I can’t think of a single reason. 

OMG, FOUR!

 

Know what else was an improvement?  Tris’ slightly longer, less wish troll, length hair.  Thank you Shailene.  Otherwise, Tris was typical Tris, pretty in line with what the character goes through in the book.  She did get to straddle Four while scaling a wall.  She can now cross that off of her bucket list, and I can add it to mine. 

Top of my list!

Suspend disbelief engaged! 
Yes, apparently Tris can fly a pod-plane thing.

 

Speaking of things done well- Miles Teller does it well.  Peter has consistently been one of my favorite parts of the movie series, and that is owed 100% to Miles.  The snark and the douchey charm are impossible not to loathe and love at the same time.  I was slightly disappointed that his existential introspective plotline was left behind; leaving us entirely with the same old opportunistic Peter we’ve always known.  I’m seriously hoping that gets explored in Ascendant. 

Word!

 

That said; let’s have some quick quipped convo about the direction and misdirection some characters were taken in. 

Hey, at least they killed Tori, right? 

To die?

 

Caleb, you started off like the Caleb I know, and you ended the film in a completely different way.  The Allegiant movie team seems to have Robin Hooded Peter’s sort of redemption arc, and in this story, Caleb, you are the poor.  It was actually nice to watch Caleb awkwardly stumble his way to bravery and back into Tris’ good graces. 

Jail can change a guy.

 

This guy- that memory serum engulfed him enough to make him forget how annoying he is, right? 

Why doesn't she love me?

 

Nita, I adore you and your downplayed role.  Here is to serving your purpose and nothing more!

Let's stir some shit up!

This Norman Bates side-part guy was seriously creeping me out.  Whether it was lurking in a corner and staring, or using his oddly soothing voice to spy on Tris while she undressed and got cleansed, he was freaking me the hell out.  But he saved Four so it’s all good. 

It's pretty creepy.

 

Amar… 

 

Exactly.

We all loved David, right?  The dumb and dumberest smart guy around, of course he thinks he is doing the right thing.  Naturally, he is totally evil.   

Seems legit.

Alright, I could do this all day really, but I have other stuff to do, like work, that makes me money.  I do want to touch on the aspect of the technology, though.  Flying pods, floating lifts, and pure city were just a few of the new additions to the film that fell a bit flat. 

WTF is happening here?

I get it, these people have the technology to genetically engineer humans, and so they should have had more advanced types of other technology than what we saw in the novels, but floating people pods, really?  The exception to this rule was the droid tech, now that was fun! 

I'll have one, thanks.

Pure city sounds like an awful boring place, by the way.  Do you agree?  Let me know in the comments.