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2 months ago

Insurgent

a review by CinemaSerf

After their initial "Divergent" experience, the gang are still trying to stay one step ahead of the pursuing "Janine" (Kate Winslet) and this makes for perilous times for "Tris" (Shailene Woodley) and her two hunky sidekicks - brother "Caleb" (Ansel Elgort) and lover "Four" (Theo James). Now I could think of worse people to be on the run with as they traverse the wreckage of Chicago trying to find some allies to assist them in thwarting the dominant aspirations of the "Erudite" group who want to take over the world. To add to their woes, the menacing spectre that is "Eric" (Jai Courtney) is leading their would-be captors and so battle lines are quickly drawn. Except, well, they aren't really. This is a predicable and weak story made watchable by a sufficient soupçon of eye-candy and some perfectly choreographed, CGI augmented, action scenarios that do at least keep the pace moving for what did seem like a long-old two hours. There's some yellow duplicity from "Peter" (Miles Teller) to inject a little jeopardy, but that's all a bit of a damp squib when subsumed into the rest of this underwhelming adaptation of a series of novels that really did leave better to the imagination than Robert Schwentke has managed to concoct for us here. It's harmless fun to watch on the television when you're doing the ironing or writing your thesis on thermonuclear fission - it's not really worth watching for itself, though.