Allegiant Review: Stay Out Of The Wasteland

About a year ago, I walked out of a theater and said, “At least there’s only one more.” Unfortunately, Lionsgate decided to make me (and everyone else who said that) a liar. The final chapter in the Divergent franchise has been split into two films, to continue continuing in the shadow of its older and more successful cousin, The Hunger Games, and for the studio’s sake, to attempt making more money before being completely forgotten.

The Hunger Games, a franchise exponentially more entertaining than the Divergent movies, couldn’t deliver truly satisfying concluding chapters when splitting its last book into two films. The same can be said for Divergent with its Allegiant installment, but worse.

After two movies revolving around dystopian Chicago, it’s finally time for Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) and their gang of young, good-looking people to escape the evil governing bodies and their soldiers with the aim of Stormtroopers. That’s right, we’re going to explore what’s on the other side of the walls!

The group makes a plan and executes it, finally reaching a wasteland which is called the Fringe, and not having much of a plan when they get there. It’s a good thing their aimless walking led them to be discovered by President Snow…errr….I mean, “David” (Jeff Daniels), the manipulative political figure who seems all too much like an exaggerated Donald Trump for Tris to trust over her long-time pal Four. But, surely, she does, and even more surely, she shouldn’t have.

That last paragraph just saved you 90 minutes. Having read that, feel free to buy a ticket to this film, get there 110 minutes late (remember to account for the 20 minutes of trailers at the beginning) and catch the last 30 minutes of this film. The finale, which isn’t a conclusion in this case, is the only remotely compelling part of Allegiant‘s story because something is actually happening. Four, Tris, and her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) seem like they finally have an objective other than being actors collecting a paycheck.

It’s a shame this band of cast members didn’t get something more interesting than a movie which shoots a character in the back in one scene and immediately forgets that detail, showing said character walking just fine in the next. Theo James can carry a scene. He can deliver during impressive action sequences. He might even be able to bring some emotional moments to a character but all this franchise allows him to do is deliver cliché lines and wait around for Tris. Similar can be said for Shailene Woodley, whose Tris character only gets more boring as we learn more about her and watch her make predictably bad decisions.

For some reason, the director and editing team on Allegiant felt the need to use a base drop sound effect every single time a scene falls into slow motion or some action is about to kick off. All emphasis the sound effect is supposed to have on the scene it accompanies is long lost by the fifth time it is used (which isn’t the last).

The Divergent Series movies have always featured some interesting and impressive visuals. The first two films saw Tris going on some trippy mental journeys which were the most captivating moments thanks to a great visual effects team. Unfortunately, we don’t have anything as impressive in Allegiant. The minds behind this film came up with concepts which often were so unacceptable that the audience laughed, like a half dollar sized drone which unleashes an orange shield to fly people through the Fringe like they’re inside a womb. It’s very odd. While the impressive effects are well executed, the moments turn out like the movie itself: a concept which audiences won’t easily accept.

Bottom Line: The few action scenes involving James and some stimulating visuals earn Allegiant a couple of points on the 10 scale but it has next to nothing else going for it… And there’s still a fourth installment on the way. 3.1/10