Review: Allegiant

The Hunger Games, which stretched on for a movie too long as well, at least had the good sense to end each one with a cliffhanger. (Even Twilight did that.) Divergent, the Shailene Woodley-starring Games ripoff that’s on film three of four, conversely ends as would a television series on the bubble—each installment could continue on, but if for some reason it can’t, the ending is satisfying enough. Very such is the case with Allegiant, which picks up in a post-Jenine world on the brink of civil war, Evelyn (Naomi Watts) having learned nothing from Kate Winslet’s mistakes or bomb-ass hairstyle. So the divergent ones—Tris (Woodley), Four (Theo James), Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Tori (Maggie Q) and useless tagalongs Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and Peter (Miles Teller, clearly pissed he’s still stuck here) decide to breach the prison-like exterior wall around Chicago to see what’s out in the world. It’s mostly a nuclear wasteland but there’s also a secret centre for human genetics headed by Jeff Daniels, and of course Tris is pure and the key to everything. She must decide to save humanity or just her town or some combination. It’s well-cast, which takes this B-level material a lot farther than it deserves, and Woodley is capable and believable as a badass, even when saddled with another terrible zipper vest.