Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant...

Allegiant is the third movie in the Divergent Series. it is part of the wave of Dystopian young adult books, which started with The Hunger Games trilogy. Like that series, the third Divergent book has been split into two movies. The last film in the series will be out next year. I quite liked Divergent, the first film. The set up is that civilization has been destroyed (duh) and the survivors in a semi-ruined Chicago have been split into 5 factions, Amity, Erudite, Candor, Abnegation, and Dauntless. Each faction plays a prescribed role in society. Each child grows up in a faction but gets to pick what faction to belong to when they grow up. A young woman from Abnegation (Shailene Woodley) shocks her parents (Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn) by choosing Dauntless while her brother (Ansel Elgort) chooses Erudite. It's like choosing a college where everyone has the same major. Woodley even starts to fall for her TA (Theo James). He's pretty cute. But all is not well. As with all of these dystopian stories, dark forces are at work, in this case, Erudite's leader played by Kate Winslet is planning a coup with Dauntless providing the muscle. Divergent, as with the first parts of all these trilogies, is by far the best. I like this story because it isn't some stupid dystopian high-school love triangle like The Hunger Games. As most of you know, I threw the last book of the Hunger Games trilogy against the wall because I am a Gale lover and a Peeta hater. But I digress.

By the end of Divergent, Woodley and James, now in love, and their merry band including Elgort, Zoe Kravitz, and Miles Teller, are outlaws. In the second movie, Insurgent, they hook up with a larger band of rebels led by James' mother (Naomi Watts). I love that this series features a female lead (Woodley) trying to maintain the peace between the two warring factions led by two very strong, slightly crazed women (Winslet and Watts). The casting is great. My favorite character is Peter played by Miles Teller, who exploded on the screen last year in Whiplash. His character has changed sides about 5 times in the three movies so far ,always betraying his former side but somehow he is still alive. He is very entertaining. Woodley and James are also very good, but as with all these series, as we approach the end, the plots get more and more far-fetched.

In Alegiant, we find out that the two centuries of factional life in Chicago has been some kind of genetic experiment. This would be a spoiler but none of it makes any sense. But we do get to see Jeff Daniels, as the leader of this other mystery group who are ensconsed at O'Hare airport, try to explain which is very fun. Anyway, there is one movie to go and I'm sure Woodley will save the day. I much prefer Woodley's Tris to Jennifer's Lawrence's Katniss. You should definitely see Divergent but the other two not so much.