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Insurgent begins with the kids from Fame – all running and smiling after escaping the evil Jeanine (Kate Winslet) – going to Amity to hide out for a while, but all is not plain sailing, since their nemesis has pretended that the attack on Abnegation was down to those Divergents, causing the baddies to hunt them down.
The heroes of the piece need Dauntless people to join their army and kill Jeanine, but she has a box, a present from her Founders, which can destroy the Divergents yet can ONLY be opened by a Diverent… not that they’ll have to do it willingly, you understand. However, only the ‘Special One’ can crack it. Who will that be? Not Jose Mourinho, even though he’s got a bit of spare time these days… yes, it doesn’t take an Einstein to work out who she needs.
This sequel features lots of running around, some more running, a bit of a family tiff between Four and his mother, a reasonable fight scene on a train – the best bit coming with a girl being wrong-footed and falling off. The landscape looks more like Life After People, the documetnary which chronicled 10,000 years after humans disappeared and, thus, had stopped going about our daily business on Earth. After that time, the landscape had reclaimed anything that humans had created, thus eradicating our existence.
Insurgent deals with some very dark themes, even more so than I remember in Divergent. And, unlike most films, the second half is better than the first, but in this case, that’s where we get all the action and the special FX.
Two questions:
- 1. Who the hell says “Erudite” in the way they do??
2. And how can Tris (Shailene Woodley) climb into that flying house when she clearly has weak-ass upper arms?
Note: This review is just for the film only, and was for one of the films I was catching up with before the end of 2015. The third entry in the series, Allegiant, is due for release in the UK on March 11th.
Insurgent is available to buy on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, as well as download, and click on the packshot for the full-size image.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 119 minutes
Studio: Entertainment One
Year: 2015
Format: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Hawk Scope, Anamorphic Master Scope, ARRIRAW (3.4K) and Redcode RAW (4K))
Released: August 3rd 2015
Rating: 4/10
Director: Robert Schwentke
Producers: Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shahbazian and Douglas Wick
Screenplay: Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback (based on the novel by Veronica Roth)
Music: Joseph Trapanese
Cast:
Tris: Shailene Woodley
Jeanine: Kate Winslet
Eric: Jai Courtney
Max: Mekhi Phifer
Four: Theo James
Caleb: Ansel Elgort
Peter: Miles Teller
Amity Divergent Woman: Cynthia Barrett
Amity Divergent Husband: Justice Leak
Amity Teacher: Lyndsi LaRose
Amity Server: Charlie Bodin
Johanna: Octavia Spencer
Christina: Zoë Kravitz
Will: Ben Lloyd-Hughes
Andrew: Tony Goldwyn
Natalie: Ashley Judd
Connor: Konrad Howard
Odessa: Lucella Costa
Amity Horse girl: Devon Lane Tresan
Marcus: Ray Stevenson
Amity Hot Blonde: Stephanie Schuland
Evelyn: Naomi Watts
Marlene: Suki Waterhouse
Hector: Emjay Anthony
Tori: Maggie Q
Jack Kang: Daniel Dae Kim
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.