ALLEGIANT (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

allegiant (2016) movie

Genre               |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   120 minutes

Released         |   17 March 2016

cast

Shailene Woodley ...Tris
Theo James ... Four
Naomi Watts ... Evelyn
Octavia Spencer ... Johanna
Jeff Daniels ... David

director

Robert Schwentke

writer

Noah Oppenheim ... (screenplay) and
Adam Cooper ... (screenplay) &
Bill Collage ... (screenplay)
 
Veronica Roth ... (novel)

cinematographer

Florian Ballhaus

music

Joseph Trapanese

film editor

Stuart Levy

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box office result

Worldwide             $179,246,868 ​

Australia                 $​​​​4,238,233

North America        $​  66,184,051 ​

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the best dialogue

David: [said to Tris] Help me. You saved a city. Help me save the world.

​David: You want change with no sacrifice. You want peace with no struggle. The world doesn't work like that.

​Tris: EVERYONE is worth saving.

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ALLEGIANT (2016) IMAGES

ALLEGIANT (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

After the earth-shattering revelations of INSURGENT, Tris must escape with Four and go beyond the wall enclosing Chicago. For the first time ever, they will leave the only city and family they have ever known. Once outside, old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless with the revelation of shocking new truths. Tris and Four must quickly decide who they can trust as a ruthless battle ignites beyond the walls of Chicago which threatens all of humanity. In order to survive, Tris will be forced to make impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice and love.

ALLEGIANT (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 16 March 2016
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐

With each successive sequel, the DIVERGENT movie series becomes more derivative and tiresome. The third film in the series, ALLEGIANT, is a real plodder and should make fans fearful that there is still another movie to come in this young adult science fiction franchise based on Veronica Roth’s novels. Director Robert Schwentke goes through the motions with ALLEGIANT and it’s no surprise to learn that he has left the series, citing fatigue from making the three DIVERGENT movies back-to-back. On the strength of what’s on offer in AlLLEGIANT, Schwentke’s departure has come one film too late. Not that Schwentke is alone in his fatigue; very few of the film’s on-screen performers deliver anything that could be described as ‘acceptable’, as the truth of what lies beyond the walls of Chicago turns out to be, rather disappointingly, just more people...

What’s remarkable about ALLEGIANT is the failure of three screenwriters to provide a compelling blueprint from which Schwentke could build the film. Adam Cooper & Bill Collage, a writing team, penned 2015’s THE TRANSPORTER REFUELLED; which was no world-beater but offered viewers plenty of action to the plot moving along. Noah Oppenheimer was screenwriter on 2014’s breakout young adult Sci-Fi film THE MAZE RUNNER and, also, managed to keep things rolling along until the end credits. Between these three writers, none of them has managed to capture the same excitement or adventure exhibited in their most recent screenplays.

The question must be asked, was the way ALLEGIANT ended up on screen the Writer’s fault or the Director’s fault? Given the Director’s departure from the series, it seems that Lionsgate, the film’s financier and distributor, may have come to the conclusion that Schwentke didn’t deliver the film they were hoping for. Given Lionsgate have been under pressure to find a new Hunger Games franchise, ALLEGIANT’s obvious shortcomings were too many to allow Schwentke to finish out the series.

The story picks-up close to where Insurgent left off, but instead a hitting the ground running, the viewer is asked to be party to another deep-and-meaningful conversation between Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James); our heroine & hero. While a recap is always a good idea, it seems as though the story is covering the same ground viewers have already seen in the first two films and it only serves to bog the film down from its very opening moments.

It’s surprising that nothing has been learned from the most successful young adult movies franchises, being HARRY POTTER and THE HUNGER GAMES, where the recap is played out through the First Act, but never as a stand-alone scene where characters break away from the current film’s plot to examine the events of the previous film. Unfortunately, messrs Cooper, Collage and Oppenheimer choose to spend a great deal of time in the first half of the movie recapping and focussing on the retribution being meted out Evelyn (Naomi Watts), who has taken control of Chicago after defeating Jeanine at the end of Insurgent.

​Matters don’t improve that much once Tris, Four, Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Christina (Zoe Kravitz) and Peter (Miles Teller) make it to the other side of the wall. Following a pursuit by Edgar (Jonny Weston), the group come into contact with David (Jeff Daniels), who explain to them that Chicago is just one big experiment.

Events unfold without much rhyme or reason throughout the Second Act, as a number of character arcs and subplots are compressed or introduced but never followed-up. This leaves little opportunity for the cast to showcase their characters, but, out of everyone, Theo James does the best and manages to give Four some passion and purpose that’s missing from every other performance.

ALLEGIANT is also let down by below par visual effects, with a number of scenes looking as though they’ve been created using old-fashioned rear-screen projection. Perhaps the budget was trimmed, but, at a time where there are so many quality visual effects companies operating around the world, it’s hard to accept that any film (let alone one that has a $100 million plus budget and has positioned itself as a science fiction adventure) can end up with scenes that look like they were shot with 1950s technology.

If the DIVERGENT series is to go out on top with its final movie, there’s going to be some serious thought given by ASCENDANT Director Lee Toland Krieger and his writing team to significantly improve upon ALLEGIANT.

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