THE DIVERGENT SERIES: ALLEGIANT opens with a voiceover which attempts to explain what's happened in the series so far so that fans are refreshed, and newcomers are caught up. This introduction may have been read by the Swedish Chef for all the good it does in clarifying this bizarre, convoluted universe. There's something about Chicago being an experiment, and the future of humanity relying on people who don't fit into factions, and some bitch named Janine died?
If this review reads like someone trying to explain pages 600-800 of a boring 1,000-page book, that's because that's exactly what Allegiant is. This movie is the third of four adaptations based on the overwrought, frustrating, best-selling YA trilogy, which I actually read all of a couple of years ago—at which point every character, plot point, and Janine immediately fell out of my brain. But I do know this: Both the Divergent movies and books deserve their frequent comparisons to The Hunger Games, in that they're about a teenage girl in a dystopian future who's thrust into a position of power to save humanity. However, they are very different from The Hunger Games in that they're not good.
This time around, our heroine Tris (Shailene Woodley) is at first is in Chicago, where everyone yells a lot, then she gets out of Chicago, and people yell less, but use that quiet, scary tone instead, and then Tris tries to go back to Chicago. One of her friends turns bad and another one dies, but Tris remains focused on leaving and returning to Chicago. I kind of wish I had some context but also, who cares?
Allegiant definitely looks cool, at least. And while lots of people are shot, there's no blood (except for when it rained blood?) so I guess it's family friendly. If you have a nine-year-old child who liked the books, you should take them to see this! As for the rest of you: precipitant, matriculant, maidservant, incontinent, I don't know.