Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

briancseel It is clear these books were rushed out as a copy cat hoping to capitalize on the wildly successful Hunger Games series. The formula was the same. A dystopian future society where people have been arbitrarily divided and oppressed and a young girl who is ready to challenge the whole thing. Hunger Games was much more thoughtful and layered, however. At its core it was a story about totalitarian regimes based on Susan Collins very real experience of living in a communist country as a military brat growing up. Divergent lacked any such layers or depth, but did in some ways make for a more entertaining movie. But at its core it was essentially just a high school coming of age story masquerading as Sci-Fi. You had the high school cliques - the jocks, the nerds, the hippies, the do-gooders and you have Tris Prior who doesn't seem to belong to any one group and is "factionless" (which in dystopian future Chicago seems to be the equivalent of having to sit alone at lunch).Divergent also gets points for all of the guys around our female heroine not being totally worthless, Four is quite capable and Peter proves himself to be of some use in Insurgent. But Tris is not going to be content to shoot a bow & arrow from a distance. That more believable combat is traded for Tris routinely beating up men with ease, which always strains credibility. The love story is better in Divergent, as at least our young heroine doesn't fall for a completely useful wet noodle of a guy. My praise ends there, however, as the story at its core makes zero sense. Essentially 200 years ago, founders created an "experiment" that they would not live to see the outcome of and apparently expected to fail. That experiment is in full on failure as "Jeanine" (has there been a worse name for a villain in movie history?) is seeking to crack down on the Divergents and maintain power over the 3 remaining factions (we did away with 2 in the first movie and yet nobody in the remaining 3 factions seems to think that anything is amiss).But Jeanine is going be challenged by a teenage girl who in true Joan of Arc style (the original Katniss Everdeen) is set to rally an army with her boyfriend Four and the help of his mother, played by Naomi Watts, exactly 16 years older than Theo James. Seems plausible, but not if you age like a Hollywood actress, she looks like his big sister.The movie spends the last half ripping off The Matrix, including the scene where Neo dies, in order for Katniss, er Tris to fulfill her destiny of decoding the founders message. We imprison Jeanine at the end, thus we are 2 movies ahead of the Hunger Games which might explain why there is no box office rationale for the 4th film which would complete the series.Although of course, we can't just imprison Jeanine, because presumably Four's mom now wants to take up the Juliane Moore role of dictatorette.Divergent had enough action and pace to warrant cinematic consideration, but the weak foundation of the series cannot support two stories. Other than getting to live in dystopian Chicago, it is unclear what benefit Jeanine actually receives by oppressing 5 factions of people.As others have noted, the zombie train system makes no sense and for being a totalitarian state, the government in Insurgent is decidedly void of surveillance technology. If you liked Divergent, stop there, leave it at that, and take the wins when you can get them.

derbo73 An uninspired and lame copy of much better books and films. Rather bad actors and lots of boring dialogues and "inner conflict" nonsense that feels constructed and totally off. Unbelievable dystopia full of logic holes and unexplainable magic devices.Nothing you will remember or wish to see continued.

Dovla Yes, this trilogy is definitely not worth investing any of your time in it. That is the fact. However, my seven stars go for the slight improvements in the plot, visual effects and action. Yes, this trilogy started as one of the biggest failure in imitating The Hunger Games, but I think they started to "diverge" starting from the middle part of the second sequel. The story started to be much more original and that's why I will give other sequels a chance as well. Nonetheless, one cannot escape the feeling that the whole plot is a bit shallow, there are many scenes when you are just wondering what the hell is this or how did this even happen? Obviously, someone could have done a better job in transferring the book into the movie, unless the book itself is shallow. Remains to be seen.Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this movie. The only ones who are completely going to enjoy this trilogy are teenage girls, while they drool over the perfect male super-masculine protagonist. As for the teenage boys, sorry lads, the female protagonist is not hot (at all).

Nejc Lozar 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.