Allegiant hit theaters this weekend and just like fans of the Divergent series, we (Sheena, Kat and Bren) rushed to the theater opening weekend. We left the theater with just an “okay” review of the first half of Allegiant or the films own adaptation of the novel; part 2 will be called ‘The Ascendant.”

***SPOILERS AHEAD. THIS IS A WARNING. CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW ***

Allegiant is the third installment of the series and failed to keep audience’s attention, despite the all star cast, jammed pack action scenes and special effects. We came up with our favorite and not so favorite parts of the movie, that we will kindly list out for you.

Special Effects: CON

With big budget films, like the Divergent franchise, it is easy to get carried away with CGI and various special effects to make a futuristic world come to life. However, Allegiant’s special effects made a more “cheap” impression with horrible backdrops of skyline behind the actors. It gave the film a cheesy feel and, let’s face it, made low budget television special effects look like a blockbuster film.  Not only did the special effects fail viewers visually, the effects also failed to take audiences to another world. They looked good from afar, but up close it was just a toxic mess.

Though some of the futuristic technology looked neat (the droids), the effects left the audience cringing at some of the scenes (in particular the scene where they are enveloped by a bubble, lifted up, and carried away).

The Acting: CON 

With the exception of Miles Teller’s take on the character Peter and new comer to the cast Bill Skarsgard’s role of Matthew, the cast failed to give the audience emotions, especially with the internal struggle Tris faces through out the film.  There was no struggle with Tris when she had to decide whether she would believe David or Four more, and there really should have been.  Four has been with her through some truly horrific moments in her life, but she so easily decided to trust David.  This, not only, did a disservice to her character, but to a relationship that was supposed to be rock solid.   There were also cringe worthy moments with dialogue that was intended to be funny, but once again failed to pack the laughs.

Another low point of the acting was the casting of Jeff Daniels as the villain, David.  We know we shouldn’t stereotype an actor based on a previous role, but Jeff’s portrayal of David did not exude anything villainess. Audience members did not leave the theater with loathing for David or having underlined hatred for the character after he betrays Tris’s trust and threatens to wipe the minds of all the ‘defective’ residents of Chicago district. To us, David was more like a disgruntled father that could not keep his rebellious daughter under lock and key.

 The Storyline: CON

Any adaptation must strive to, not only, appease the fans of the original source material, but also tailor the movie for people who may not have read the books.  This is always a tricky line to walk for any adaptation to walk, and we believe it fell right off the edge. Plot holes aside, it felt as if more of an explanation as to what happened in the past should have been attempted. Back in the olden days, humans did experimentation on the human genome, and things went horribly wrong (though no specifics are given).  Those who were experimented on were the damaged, and those who were not experimented on were the pure, and there was this nasty war between them (and again no real specifics are given).  That is the gist of what we thought was going on.  Yet, Tris, for no real reason, is somehow different than the other divergents and they are trying to figure out why and replicate it.  Our guess is that Tris is a mix on non-damaged and damaged code.

The idea of the experiment just makes it seem that the “pure” people where the mad scientists as they were the ones who put all the “damaged” people in a fenced off city for an experiment, and in the hopes of “healing” their damaged genes.  But wouldn’t that just make things worse?  Wouldn’t breeding defective genes create more defective genes?

We felt that if there was such a divide between the two sides that maybe they should have gone into a little more of an explanation as to why they are divided.  If the divide is because of genetics, then you better have a clear and concise way to explain it, especially if people in the audience (like the teen demographic this movie was striving to reach) may not know about genetics and genetic experimentation.  We’re sure people can figure out what was going on if they watched the movie a few times, but that’s the point: they shouldn’t have to watch the movie a few times just to understand what is going on.  If it is the central point to the film, shouldn’t it have been made crystal clear to the audience in the first go around?  Most people are not going to shell out more money to watch a movie again just to understand it.  There should have been a better or easier explanation to all of this.

And then there was the part about the stolen children.  We see the “pure” people going into the fringe, stealing children, wiping their memories, but then it gets hazy as to what happens to the children afterwards.  We assume they just all assimilate into the “pure” people’s society, or, in Tris’s mother’s case, be put into the Chicago experiment, but wouldn’t people know that there were a whole bunch of new kids with no memories of their parents or their lives before?  We felt as if there should be more of an explanation for that part. We felt that this was a thread left dangling, and hopefully it will be explained in the next movie.

There seemed to be a lot of plot holes, and a lot of questions that were not fully answered.  Maybe it is because the film is being split into two, and maybe that was Lionsgate’s decision, but that still left a lot of loose ends. Overall, we give Allegiant 2 out of 5 stars or a D grade.