This is the third Divergent film. Netflix does us the honour of not calling it The Divergent Series: Allegiant, though apparently that is the official title. But it does seem it a little less condescending than the second film. There’s a video message to explain what’s going on like in the second film, but it is no longer just a plot summary truck, it actually sort of feels relevant to the plot.

I took some notes in lieu of a review:

One of the most ridiculous things is the sky. They walk from a place where the sky is one way to a place where it’s totally different. The thing supposedly keeping them from seeing that sky is, um, a wall.

One thing I don’t understand about this outside world is why the people pursuing them would follow them into it. One of the stupid clichés of henchmen is the things they blindly do that very few people would likely do.

Another thing I don’t understand is why the faction system breaks down and immediately everyone forgets their supposed natures and behaves according to the dictates of the plot. And all their clothes’ have changed! It doesn’t make any sense, it’s as if the faction system was all bullshit. (Weird!)

Once they get to “The Bureau” there are shades of The Maze Runner, which was published earlier, dum dum dum. (Could they have picked a less threatening name? If the writer was better, yes.)

O’Hare is 18 miles from downtown Chicago. The way they explain this away is that there’s some kind of protective barrier tat hides the existence of their city. The way to actually handle this is through hints in the previous books/movies, about something on the horizon, only occasionally visible, even if it’s just errors with the barrier. But that would require the author knowing where this was going ahead of time. This turns out to be a plot point at the end, but I do feel like a better series would have alluded to this in the first film.

If you’re going to assassinate somebody, don’t do it in a plane?

Imagine having one little oasis of vegetation in an entire world of wasteland – a little bit like the desert version of Waterworld – and you devote some of it to a giant pool. Makes sense.

The film reverses the final mission of the second film, though our hero is still more responsible for it than anyone. Still, there is some deja vu.

When he returns to Chicago, Peter is like a little devil on Evelyn’s shoulder. It’s so bizarre that this character hasn’t been killed. It’s almost as if the author doesn’t fully get the stakes or he’s really a bunch of characters combined because he constantly betrays everyone and nobody ever does anything to him.

David controls everything but he can only cutoff certain communications? Why doesn’t he cut off their communications? Is he bluffing?

That serum sure dissipates quickly. Also, can you really gas an entire city? I know in WWI they had a lot of issues with what direction the gas would blow due, you know, the wind.

So there was supposed to be a fourth one, because it was really trendy to have two part conclusions to film series (Harry Potter, Hunger Games) but, instead, this movie bombed and so they cancelled it. So it just ends with, um, a “cliffhanger” (that is very much not a cliffhanger).

Anyway, I didn’t hate this as much as the second film, which I found very offensive. Still, I wonder why these series all seem to come to similar plots. How is it that this book is cribbing from The Maze Runner (without the maze, obviously) and nobody seems to care?

3/10