Insurgent (2015)

One of the best on par sequels Ive seen in recent years . I love book adapted movies.

Insurgent is the sequel to the follow up Divergent released in 2014. There does seem to be more action sequences and stunts both they are repetitive. The entire plot is quite basic, with Tris and Four wanting to find and kill the leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) since she is doing harm to the other people in the factions and such. A running time of slightly less than two hours, a lot of the film contains slightly meaningless scenes of build up or to make up time. A scene featuring them fighting against 'factionless' people on the train was quite well done but at the same time a little silly and pointless. Following the fight, after causing much damage and killing some of their crew, Four tells the leader of the 'factionless' his name then it all stops, because Four was the one they wanted and were looking for. They apparently didn't know it was him but knew of his name. It would have made a lot more sense had Four stated his name prior to fighting. As well with some of the scenes towards the end involving Tris being in some kind of 'simulation' with wires hooked on her, are thought to be interesting, but at the same time more could have been done and less predictable. The effects looked nice.The weak plot, and not much character development is what was holding this film back, as well with scenes that drag on. This film, one can tell feels quite different than the original and that a different director directed it. The style and tone feel a little off and Tris was slightly different. It's as if she didn't care too much about some of the people that were sacrificing themselves for her, and they made her a little more aggressive, angry and confused but in some ways it was expected. Perhaps a little over the top. Insurgent isn't terrible but it's a slight step back from Divergent. Opinions may differ.

So...I had this movie since forever in my laptop and since there was no WiFi I thought, well, what the hell? let's get it over with..I have already read the books unlike other people and I gotta say, the movie is even more boring than the books tbh... The only reason I gave 5 is because i REALLY liked Cate's portrayal of Jeanine...her scenes are the only ones that was memorable to me...Four, tris, Caleb- the characters are so one-dimensional, that there should be an award for who was the most one-dimensional of them all... will watch allegiant when I have nothing else to watch AT ALL... like seriously, my clichéd Korean and Chinese dramas are better than this since I go there with the expectations that it will be clichéd but with Hollywood movies I am used to having more expectations..

Before we get started, let me say that I haven't read a book. I just don't read. This is something that bothers me heavily when people are enraged and dislike a movie simply because it wasn't loyal to a book or when movie feels jumbled and confusing simply because you haven't read a book and when you complain about it people say you should read the book. Movie is a movie, book is a book.One of the most common complaints I heard about this film is that it has too convoluted plot. It most definitely has a complex plot but at no point did I feel lost. I would go as far and say that if you got lost in the plot you probably haven't paid proper attention or simply switched your brain off, because I was entertained and thrilled through out the entire run time.Insurgent is the kind of movie that greatly benefits from being a sequel. We already had our characters set up in a first movie (Divergent). With origin story out of the way we can just have our characters being badass right out the gate.Easily the most interesting character is of course Tris, played amazingly by Shailene Woodley. She is the heart and soul holding this movie together. And as I said we saw her became badass in Divergent, now we can just have her awesome immediately and she even steps it up further. One of my favorite scene in the movie is when she stands trail at Candor and is forced to speak the truth. Her performance in that scene is just... flawless. But not just her performance, but also the editing, timing of the shots, pausing, just an amazing and brilliantly crafted sequence. It's scenes like this that really make you connect with her character. Overall she absolutely sells it as this emotionally broken girl who feels that she has to make things right even after having lost everything already.With all that praise for Shailene Woodley, I must admit that the rest of the cast, with exception of Theo James and Milles Teller from time to time, does feels like they are a bit bored. The two big names (Kate Winslet and Naomi Watts) while good don't really do much.Another concept that I loved is the sim test to open that box. (For the spoiler sake that is all I will say.) I love how Tris feels like she needs to do it because she feels responsible. Not to mention that that scene contains some phenomenal action sequences. Also early on in a film there is some excellent and of course very subtle foreshadowing for one of the sims.It's just little gems like this, some truly well crafted and filmed action sequences (no shaky cam, thank god) and just an incredible performance from Shailene Woodley that honestly lead me to believe that this movie is much more then just a quick YA novel to film cash grab adaptation, especially since as I said I haven't read the book so I can just watch the movie for what it is.I honestly would go as far and say that is better then the original and definitely better then Allegiant which is what inspired me to rewatch the first two and review Insurgent.Ulitmatly Insurgent is not without it's fair share of flaws but overall this is one of the better young adult films we got so far.