The Divergent Series: Allegiant - Part 1

It's easier to forgive bad writing and directing when the eye candy is tasty, and a good script with vivid characters can make an audience overlook cheap effects. But when neither the material nor the CGIs are any good, the "Exit" sign becomes more compelling than the screen itself.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant - Part 1 is the third, but sadly not the last, adaptation of Veronica Roth's young adult dystopia novels. Coming on the heels of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner, the Divergent series often seems to blend into the others. Thanks to similarly named characters and repeated tropes, viewers can be forgiven for expecting Katniss Everdeen to show up at some point.

At least Allegiant takes its team of rebels outside of the gloomy, forbidding walls of a rotting futuristic Chicago. Unfortunately, it treats the audience to a dour landscape and a cold, hi-tech palace.

Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Tori (Maggie Q), Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Tris' brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and the duplicitous Peter (Miles Teller) leave the Windy City against the orders of Four's mother, Evelyn (Naomi Watts, who looks more like Four's slightly older sister). The end of the factions during the conclusion of the last movie brought about the demise of the dictator Jeanine and saved anyone who had trouble discerning all of the different groups a good deal of stress.

Sadly, that's about all of the challenge or suspense this series was able to create.

Just as Pete Townshend informed us, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," Evelyn is violently eliminating the officials from the previous regime and making Four ashamed in the process.

After a daring but not terribly exciting escape, Tris discovers that Chicago's residents were actually lab rats that a local council leader named David (Jeff Daniels) dreamed up in order to see if a genetically pure individual could be produced "organically" in the wilderness. Being divergent means that Tris is such a person and a sign that there's hope for humanity after all.

Somehow, Tris isn't suspicious of a leader looking for bloodline purity. Any viewer above the age of 12 would be suspicious of David, but she has to be shown. It makes one wonder if "pure" and "smart" are mutually exclusive terms.

Despite the new setting, the characters from the previous installment seem to have learned nothing, and director Robert Schwentke can't find any way of getting around CGI vehicles that can never be mistaken for the genuine articles. It's as if he and his collaborators have assumed that the teen audience for this flick is unfamiliar with dystopian cliches and has poor eyesight.

Because nothing in the film looks tangible, the bloodletting and the stunts lead to more yawns than gasps. There's a formidable blend of young and old talent in Allegiant, but most of the performers have been relegated to looking serious as Jetsons-like vehicles dart above the rubble.

The relentlessly somber tone only seems to make the silliness more apparent. Tris laments that David's plans will kill people, but she and her compatriots unleash a torrent of lead in their quest to liberate Chicago.

There are a few attempts at humor, and they all fail. Yes, it would be reasonable for someone in that environment to ask, "What's an airport?" Too bad it's not funny.

MovieStyle on 03/18/2016